Best post Tolkien fantasy?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-11-01 09:44pm

What's the best post Tolkien fantasy?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-11-01 09:45pm

My personal vote has to go with A Song of Ice and Fire. It's a superb series: well drawn, captivating characters, a great story, and well written. It's a hell of a story and the way Martin writes has got me hooked. Plus thankfully it's avoided most of the horrible cliches that much of modern fantasy is riddled with.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-11-01 10:05pm

I'm surprised you added Forgotten Realms, but I was going to try and edit it in if it wasn't there. Not to go on too much of a fanboy gush, but it really does break the traditional fantasy mold in a number of good places, and has been shown to really be a durable, imaginative world.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-11-01 11:13pm

I have to go with Recluce, Modesitt's series. Something about his stuff just draws me in, and I'm always checking the 'M' section at the bookstore to see if something's slipped past me when I wasn't paying attention

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2004-11-01 11:17pm

Dammit! I'd have voted Song of Fire and Ice if you hadn't mentioned Forgotten Realms.

Gotta go with what's the largest collection

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2004-11-02 01:04am

Terry Goodkind for me. He's admittedly getting a bad case of verbal diarrhea. The main character of his last book spent most of his time preaching, but the majority of his work I personally find fra better than Tolkien.

GeneralTacticus · Post by **GeneralTacticus** » 2004-11-02 01:14am

Trogdor wrote:Terry Goodkind for me. He's admittedly getting a bad case of verbal diarrhea. The main character of his last book spent most of his time preaching, but the majority of his work I personally find fra better than Tolkien.

*vomits* His last three books have just been one very-longwinded political rant... to be fair, Book 5 was too, but at least one could read that without getting the feeling that he was shoving his ideology down your throat. The ones after that, OTOH, could be summarised as "Communism is evil, stay away from it, and kill anybody who believes in it. Objectivism is the only valid ideology." And I'm quite serious about that, especially when it comes to the last book he's written.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2004-11-02 02:22am

White Haven wrote:I have to go with Recluce, Modesitt's series. Something about his stuff just draws me in, and I'm always checking the 'M' section at the bookstore to see if something's slipped past me when I wasn't paying attention

I'll second that. He had a way of turning fantasy on its head with that... of course, it's nothing compared to Terry Pratchett's upheaval of fantasy (

), but it's still quite good.

Anhaga · Post by **Anhaga** » 2004-11-02 02:48am

I'm going to have to go with a tie between Song of Ice and Fire and Stephen King's Dark Tower cycle.

Pratchett goes without saying but I'll leave him out as he only uses a fantasy backdrop to satirise the modern world.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-11-02 03:22am

Well, I love playing in the Realms. Favorite campaign setting, hands down. But my only exposure to the novels has been the hack work that is Salvatore's later Drizz't novels (come on, use some variety in your descriptive adjectives, and try having the characters react in ways that make sense; one doesn't "exclaim" at the most mundane of things), so I'm kind of soured there. Must go with Shannara.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-11-02 03:23am

Bone.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-11-02 06:48am

And slowly, quietly, the Terry Brooks Fans make their feelings known.... Long live the bloodline of Jerle Shannara.

andrewgpaul · Post by **andrewgpaul** » 2004-11-02 07:31am

I'll vote for Chine Miêville's New Crobuzon series - Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council. The setting is, IMO, great - Victorian industrial city, with magical enhancements - various races, like the amphibious Vodyanoi with water-controlling shamans, the insect-headed Khepri, and the Cactacae - 7-foot tall plant-people. With spikes

(in the words of the author, they were created to take the piss out of Ents). Not forgetting the Remade - criminals altered with magic and technology to become indentured workers and soldiers - crude cybernetic implants, or even spliced parts from other creatures.

They're better than I'm selling them

lgot · Post by **lgot** » 2004-11-02 10:53am

It would be interesting to see Sandman in this list. But since they are all post-Tolkien but yet fantasy but not in the fantastic world style, It must be something like Italo Calvino or Jorge Luis Borges.
Calvino's Invisible Cities, Cosmicomics, etc are awesome, among the best literature works of the XX century.
And borges several short stories (when he was not talking about books never written by authors that never existed) are really moderm fantasy, since it was mostly about the moderm world.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-11-02 10:54am

Rogue 9 wrote:Well, I love playing in the Realms. Favorite campaign setting, hands down. But my only exposure to the novels has been the hack work that is Salvatore's later Drizz't novels (come on, use some variety in your descriptive adjectives, and try having the characters react in ways that make sense; one doesn't "exclaim" at the most mundane of things), so I'm kind of soured there. Must go with Shannara.

Grab up some other ones at a library or something. I'd recommend the Elminster series with the exception of Elminster's Daughter.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-11-02 11:00am

there's simply far too many choices for me to pick a single favorite. . . so may as well fire a few off.

Dark Tower series, by stephen king. Probably one of the best epics since LotR, it's easily a masterpiece in and of itself. i don't care for much of king's work, but the dark tower is gold.

Neil Gaiman - he's written a goodly amount of fantasy novels and series, so i won't bother listing them all here. but the vast majority of stuff he's written has been top notch imo. including american gods, sandman, books of magic, and neverwhere.

Forgotten Realms - easily one of the best d&d settings out there. shouldn't need much more explanation.

Dune - not quite sure whether it'd be suitable for fantasy or sci-fi since it seems to combine so many elements of both. but it's up there with LotR and the dark tower for overall best fantasy series.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2004-11-02 11:48am

I voted A Song of Fire and ICe only one on the list I've read. Although i could have clicked other and put in Robin Hobbs excellant trilogy of trilogies: Farseer, Liveship traders and Fool trilogies.

Mark S · Post by **Mark S** » 2004-11-02 12:34pm

I used to read Forgotten Realms but it turn into just same ol' same ol' to me. I liked the Dark Elf stuff until Salvatory brought someone back from the dead. That pissed me off enough to make me want to stop reading the whole lot. I think I bought a few different series after that but my interest was fizzled. Then someone goes and makes a female drow character? Give me a break.

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2004-11-02 01:48pm

Anhaga wrote:I'm going to have to go with a tie between Song of Ice and Fire and Stephen King's Dark Tower cycle.

Pratchett goes without saying but I'll leave him out as he only uses a fantasy backdrop to satirise the modern world.

I love the Dark Tower, too. Are we allowed to mention non-Tolkein-like Fantasy? Cause if so, I think Niven's The magic Goes away is good, as is Turtledove's Darkness series and Between the Rivers. Harry Potter gets a mention, too, as do books 1 and 3 of the Earthsea series.

If we're sticking to elves and dwarves and "high fantasy"--i.e. Tolkein riffs--I really like the work of Barbara Hambly, especially the fucked-up (in a good way) Dragonsbane series. Eragon was a real hoot, too.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2004-11-02 01:50pm

For me the Dark Tower as a series.

Forgotten Realms is very nice, but a good many books can be complete hits and misses.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2004-11-02 02:23pm

and the Cactacae - 7-foot tall plant-people. With spikes (in the words of the author, they were created to take the piss out of Ents)

And which, let's face it, were pinched from Final Fantasy...

Perdido Street Station is fun and all, but it is a bit aimless for the first few hundred pages.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2004-11-02 04:34pm

My two favorites at the moment are Canadian

R. Scott Baker's Prince of Nothing- Fantasy version of the 1st Crusade complete with monk manipulators, inhuman infiltrators, badass nomads, and rival sorcerers.

Steven Erickson's Malazan Book of the Fallen-great military sci-fi except it is fantasy. He's work is going to shortly be released in the states.

A Song of Fire and Ice is of course a litmus test on to whether or not you can recognize good writing.

Forgotten Realms-a lot of hack writers, but it also has Lynn Abby and Jeff Grubb.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2004-11-02 04:52pm

I must abstain. While I admit some of the Realms books are at best mediocre I submit that will be the case with any franchise of that size. Wars EU, anyone?

That being said, I have another problem: I tend to be forgiving for a writer not being all that hot if the story/setting are good. Let me try to explain:
A lot of writers are excellent storytellers but only so-so writers.
*dons nomex batsuit*
For example, Tolkien. The actual LotR books damn near bored me to tears at times, but the story of the Ring war itself, and the setting of Middle Earth, are incredible.
Same goes for the FR. While a lot of the novels aren't too good, the setting (which admittedly isn't really the work of thhe writers but still) is tremendous, and I actually liked to overall story of the Dizzt novels (even if most of the WERE not all that well written).
Same with Moorcock. Sure, as a writer he isn't so hot but that entire Eternal Champion thing of his is just way cool.
Shadowrun. Again that'mainly the setting but a lot of the novel's aren't half bad.
If I have to go with something that's got BOTH an excellent setting, good stories, AND good writing, I am slightly aghast that her ladyship hasn't mentioned it yet:
DISCWORLD!!!

Prozac the Robert · Post by **Prozac the Robert** » 2004-11-02 05:56pm

David Gemmell gets my vote. I strongly advise anyone and everyone to give him a try. Legend is a good begining.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Ericson just gets better and better (well, the second one was not so good, but if you ignore that one every book has been better than the last).

Ice and Fire seemed to slow down a bit for me. And if he randomly kills anyone esle I like off I'm going to get pretty annoyed.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2004-11-02 07:22pm

Yes, Deadhouse Gates was Erickson's weakest, but it was still damn good. You can't tell me you didn't like the Wiccans, the Rope becoming an uncle, Kalim's quest, or the Chain of Dogs.