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[IoCaster]

Thanks for all of the recommendations.

I like my fantasy books to be somewhat grounded. This made Steven Erikson's stuff completely unreadable for me. I only made it 100 pages or so into the first book and gave up. I've also heard that the Wheel of Time series is full of ridiculous stuff, too, and I've avoided it as a result.

I liked Abercrombie's stuff quite a bit, although I dropped The Heroes midway. I'll have to give it another try someday.

I've never heard of Feist Wurts, or Modesitt, but I'll go ahead and check them out. Same with Abraham.

Discworld is great, although I've only read The Colour of Magic. I consider it more of a comedy book than a fantasy novel, though. I plan on reading more of the series, but I'm looking for something a bit more 'serious' in tone at the moment.

I've heard good things about Moorcock, though, even if his stuff is more "pulpy". What's a good book of his with which to start?

I got sidetracked and couldn't respond earlier. Sorry about that.

I don't believe that the Wheel of Time series is really any more ridiculous than LoTR. The main problem with the series is that Jordan kind of went apeshit with the worldbuilding and as a consequence some of the later books meandered a bit too much. That was a big problem when I was waiting 1-2 years between releases. It's not so bad when you can progress through the books in order relatively quickly. The last novel will be released sometime next year (mid to late 2012).

The Malazan books are definitely out there and the timeline is kind of scrambled so it's hard to keep track of connecting plots and characters.

Raymond E. Fiest wrote the Riftwar Cycle books. Janny Wurts collaborated with Fiest in her Empire trilogy. She has also written the Wars of Light and Shadow set of novels.

L. E. Modesitt has written the Recluse and Corean Chronicles series.

The Discworld series is a bit hit and miss with me. I never cared for Rincewind, but I really like the city watch stories with Vimes, Carrot, Angua, Nobbs, Detritus, etc,.

I read most of the early Michael Moorcock books ages ago so my memory is a bit hazy. He's also a bit out there with his Eternal Champion stuff. I like the Elric of Melniboné and Corum books.

If you haven't read any of the Vlad Taltos books you might try the first one titled Jhereg by Steven Brust.

Anyway, those were just a few that sprang to mind when I posted that comment. I've read so many fantasy books over the years that I'd have a difficult time compiling a list of my favorites off hand.

 

[Shake Appeal]

The problem isn't that Bioware's 'ambition' has shrunk, it's that they're designing games by focus group and committee with marketing squadrons looking over their shoulder to make sure that absolutely everything is as accessible and playable and neutral as possible, because almost every developer making games is desperately afraid players won't finish their game (with good reason, statistics show), and every single publisher is desperately afraid they won't even buy it to start with.

When you have so many cooks (often with competing values) trying to serve a broth that everyone can enjoy, blandness results... at best (ME2). At worst, the game is a schizophrenic mess (DA2).