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Recommend me some epic fantasy

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Victarion

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Ok gaf, I really love Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire series. And since the wait for TWoW is gonna be a long one, I wanna get into some other novels.

I already tried reading Malazan Book of the Fallen but that wasn't entirely into my taste. So recommend me some epic fantasy that doesn't have a slow start.
 
Check out the lists here http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=497995

For fantasy, I'd recommend (although not epic on the scale of LOTR or ASOIAF):

- The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
- The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks
- The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
- The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik (fantasy as in dragons during the Napoleonic wars).

Or try some historical fiction such as Gates of Fire or The Virtues of War by Steven Pressfields if you want to read a lot about battles.
 
Check out the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams. It starts with "The Dragonbone Chair" and is quite epic.

It's a slow burn in the beginning but its worth the investment.
 
Ok gaf, I really love Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire series. And since the wait for TWoW is gonna be a long one, I wanna get into some other novels.

I already tried reading Malazan Book of the Fallen but that wasn't entirely into my taste. So recommend me some epic fantasy that doesn't have a slow start.

I'm in the same position as you. Only series I've read after finished A Song of Ice and Fire are

Mistborn (really good adventure with awesome characters and amazing magic system)

and Kingkiller Chronicles (follows the life of the most famous magician (arcanist) around. 1st person, really cool stuff. Little slow to start)

Just started Prince of Thorns, only 60 pages in though. Mostly trying to wrap my brain around how evil the main character is so far.
 
The Prince of Nothing series by Scott R. Bakker is my favourite epic-fantasy right now. The only 'problem' is that it's going to turn in an 8 or 9 book series, and he has only finished 5 parts. Could take at least 6 years before the series is finished.
 
Hmm the Night Angel Trilogy (all three books) is only $13.59 on Amazon right now. I think I'll bite.
 
Thanks guys, checked some wiki on those suggestions. They all seem to be interesting, particularly The Night Angel Trilogy, Prince of Thorns and Prince of Nothing. Will probably get these.

I should have mentioned in the OP that I like the novels with awesome characters cause I really root for them.
 
YES GUY! A thousand times this. It's the first of a trilogy that absolutely delivers. This story delivers like few others. Truly a dark and twisted tale.

Except the last book is complete and utter shit and ruins the trilogy.
 
The Malazan Book of the Fallen series is amazing. Incredible worldbuilding and a really well thought out history spanning thousands of years. The author, Steven Erikson, is an archaelogist by day, so there are all kinds of ancient civilizations and lost cities. Great battle scenes too.
 
Ok gaf, I really love Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire series. And since the wait for TWoW is gonna be a long one, I wanna get into some other novels.

I already tried reading Malazan Book of the Fallen but that wasn't entirely into my taste. So recommend me some epic fantasy that doesn't have a slow start.

I can't recommend this enough - The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. Its fast paced and full of action. I liked it as much (maybe even more?) as ASoIaF.

I just ordered

The Blade Itself

Nice!
 
If you're looking for something slightly different, I honestly can't recommend The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham highly enough.

It's masterful.

Anything by Brandon Sanderson is great too.
 
Read the first three books of The Wheel Of Time and pretend that the main character wakes up and it was all a dream.

Better yet, read the first three books and then some fan fiction.
 
The Malazan Book of the Fallen series is amazing. Incredible worldbuilding and a really well thought out history spanning thousands of years. The author, Steven Erikson, is an archaelogist by day, so there are all kinds of ancient civilizations and lost cities. Great battle scenes too.

I agree. Unfortunately the OP doesn't :(

Give it a little time and try again. The Malazan books lead up to some epic battles and conflicts though i agree that Gardens of the Moon is a bit of a slow start. That's only because it's laying down the bedrock for some great shenanigans later on.

I normally don't like Fantasy due to over-exposure to the template tropes when i was younger and tbh the Malazan books rekindled my interest in the genre.

I'm off to look at some of the recommendations here. Neat!
 
The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson. It's the first book of what shall become a ten book or so series. So you'll have to wait a bit till the next volume comes out. But since Sanderson writes like a freaking machine the wait probably won't be as long as for certain other epic fantasy books.

Also, Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. Don't know if one can call it epic fantasy, but it is an absolutly great book.

That being said most of the recommendations in this thread so far are good ones.
 
Except the last book is complete and utter shit and ruins the trilogy.

I totally didn't feel that way. I thought it 'landed the plane' rather well considering all that was going on. It completed a great story and left a few things up in the air for later books.

Plus the very ending, when all is finally revealed, left me reeling for a couple days. Abercrombie created a world with a truly unique way of how things work.
 
I read them when I was much younger so I'm not sure how well they hold up but I really enjoyed the Sword of Shannara and the rest of the Shannara series by Terry Brooks.
 
The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson. It's the first book of what shall become a ten book or so series. So you'll have to wait a bit till the next volume comes out. But since Sanderson writes like a freaking machine the wait probably won't be as long as for certain other epic fantasy books.

Also, Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. Don't know if one can call it epic fantasy, but it is an absolutly great book.

That being said most of the recommendations in this thread so far are good ones.

THIS. The Stormlight Chronicles. Way of Kings is an excellent first book, and it gets insanely awesome near the end.
 
For something with a totally different kind of setting, try Stephen King's Dark Tower books. Just remember that the first book, which was initially written when King was in his early 20s, has a different vibe than the other books in the series, and is not quite as easy to appreciate (some love it, others don't). It's also really short, and well worth the effort to get to the second book where things start to open up a lot more. King considers the series his life's work, or something along those lines, and as a fan of his writing, I think the books when taken together stand above anything else he's ever done. I think the series is as good or better than anything I've read in the fantasy genre, and it's extremely unique.

Also, another recommendation for the Wheel of Time series. The quality drops off during the middle books, but most fans seem to agree that the later books make up for it. Jordan is a quirky writer, and the books are a love/hate kind of thing, but the sense of adventure and the world-building are fantastic. It's definitely one of the greatest Fantasy series ever written, despite the flaws. I've been reading them for years, and when they're good, there is no fantasy series that's more *fun* to read. The vibe is totally different from George Martin's series, and nowhere near as grim.
 
The Name of the Wind's already been recommended, so I'll suggest instead that you check out The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. It has some of the classical fantasy adventure tropes going on about a young man, a princess, a magic sword, and a quest to stop a Dark Lord, but it's notable in that it 1)draws heavily from Welsh mythology, 2)focuses a lot on the development and growth of the main characters and 3)it's freaking heart-breaking.
 
Man, all of my recommendations are pretty much taken already.

So I'll just go ahead and second Bujold's Chalion novels and Lynch's Locke Lemora series as probably my favorites of the current ones listed, especially from the recent era. I've not read the First Law trilogy, but The Heroes by Abercrombie is excellent, especially if you like R.R. Martin.

If you want to go back to some older books something like Lloyd Alexander's Prydian might tickle your fancy, though that is a bit more of a young adult book.

edit: Back to back Lloyd Alexander recs....nicely done.
 
You might like these:

Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay (or the first 3 standalones he wrote - Tigana, Song for Arbonne, Lions of Al-Rassan) but GGK is a bit like marmite.

Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. Fitz, the main character, isn't exactly 'kick-ass', but he is one of the best fantasy characters there is.

And I second the recommendation of Long Price, it's excellent.
 
If you gave up on Malazan after the first book, I'd say you should give it another shot. It was written ~10 years before the second one and there's a pretty big leap in quality I think. No big deal if you still don't like it, but if you do, you're in for one hell of a ride. So good.

A couple others that haven't been mentioned yet, but I think you might like to check out (even if they're not really epic fantasy)
KJ Parker
Gene Wolfe
Steven Brust
Ian Tregillis
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Matthew Woodring Stover
Stephen Donaldson
 
Elric of Melniboné.

ibhocLKhiHRUmE.jpg
 
I read them when I was much younger so I'm not sure how well they hold up but I really enjoyed the Sword of Shannara and the rest of the Shannara series by Terry Brooks.

I'm not faulting you because you haven't read them in so long but I just don't want the OP to be tricked into reading these. It's such a blatant copy/paste job of LOTR. It's actually a little embarrassing how closely it sticks to LOTR with different names and then every book afterward follows in the exact same formula. Extremely boring and needlessly long, I would suggest staying away at all costs. I enjoyed Wizard's First Rule more. Take that as you will.
 
The Black Company is awesome and hasn't been mentioned.

Yep, it's top 3 for me so far. I've read tons of fantasy but my standouts are:

Malazan Book of the Fallen
The Black Company

Both of those are very epic and will last you quite some time. Dark, gritty, raw stories with tons of characters. A very different kind of fantasy than GRRM, but one I personally prefer despite my love of the first 3 novels in Ice and Fire which is the other series in my top 3 currently (though Feast was disappointing and I've yet to read Dance). I loved the first two from Rothfuss as well, and I'm very much looking forward to the 3rd installment. It's a great series so far and one I hope will continue to evolve after 3, or will be branched off of somehow.

I just ordered the First Law and Mistborn trilogies so I can't yet comment on those but they're both supposedly very good reads.

I did read Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn and while it was good I just can't recommend it over any of what I've listed so far. There are of course the other giants in Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, R.A Salvatore and even the Shannara series (though it can be a bit younger in feeling), David Eddings' Belgariad and Malloreon. Those are all good reads. Salvatore's Drizzt novels in particular, that encompasses many series, close to 20 books in total. Then the rest of Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms you can branch into. Edit: Though I haven't read those in a long long time... except for my recent re-read of all the Drizzt novels, so I know that one still rocks. I also kinda remember losing interest in later novels of Goodkind's series and I never did go back to, or finish it.

It's exhausting!
 
Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. Fitz, the main character, isn't exactly 'kick-ass', but he is one of the best fantasy characters there is
Robin Hobb - Farseer Trilogy. Mainly because it's great that the main character makes mistakes all the time and is a surly bastard.
Pickin' up what yall are puttin' down.

Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents and say Robin Hobb is definitely an excellent author. Farseer trilogy is excellent as are the other trilogies based in the same word which are the Liveship Traders and The Tawny Man trilogy. I haven't read the Rainwild Chronicles yet.
 
YES GUY! A thousand times this. It's the first of a trilogy that absolutely delivers. This story delivers like few others. Truly a dark and twisted tale.

Abercrombie is my favorite writer of contemporary fantasy, but I'm not sure his style suits the epic, heroic archetype that OP is looking. I recommend it nonetheless because it's awesome.

Anyway, I recommend getting into Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga. Dark, heroic "swords & sorcery"-style fantasy.

Elric of Melniboné.
There we go, glad I wasn't the first to mention it.
 
Pickin' up what yall are puttin' down.

Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents and say Robin Hobb is definitely an excellent author. Farseer trilogy is excellent as are the other trilogies based in the same word which are the Liveship Traders and The Tawny Man trilogy. I haven't read the Rainwild Chronicles yet.

Do eet.

I liked the Liveship Traders trilogy best out of those, with the Rain Wild Chronicles second, I think, but I've read them last and haven't finished all the books, so that might change.
 
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