Fantasy books

I feel I sorely need a distraction from the application process, and fantasy books are usually one of my favorite distractions. However, I start feeling I’ve read them all, which is obviously not true. Can you share some of your favorite fantasy books? For starters, here are some of the authors I enjoyed reading (not counting the classics like Tolkien and Pratchett - I refuse to go to heaven if they don’t continue writing there):

Brandon Sanderson
Jasper Fforde
Robert Jordan
Guy Gavriel Kay
Jonathan Stroud
Jim Butcher
Scott Lynch
Robin Hobb
Patrick Rothfuss

I love the Paksenarrion series by Elizabeth Moon.

A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet – Becky Chambers

My favorite fantasy writer by far, IMHO, is Diana Wynne Jones!

Her best known is Howl’s Moving Castle. My favorite is Dark Lord of Derkholm. Also love the Chrestomanci series. She won lots of awards, btw, and Neil Gaiman is a big fan.

For fairytale fantasy, Mercedes Lackey “500 Kingdoms” series, starting with “The Fairy Godmother.”

For urban fantasy, I love Shanna Swendson.

I just started Starless by Jacqueline Carey. Only a little ways into it, but it is very promising. I wished I could stay home and read it today. :slight_smile:

My kids and I loved The Goblin Emporer by Katherine Addison. Can’t understand why there is no sequel. :frowning:

Recently finished Inheritance by Megan Lindholm (Robin Hobb) — short stories, which I don’t always like, but liked these. I’d like to try more of the Lindholm books, but my library doesn’t have them. The Book Of Swords is also fantasy short stories (all with swords).

The Naomi Novak Temeraire books are a lot of fun.

I enjoyed Arabella of Mars by David Levine.

Have you read The Green Rider by Kristen Britain? I liked the first couple a lot, thought the quality fell off after that.

Tooth & Claw by Jo Walton. Combo of dragons and Jane Austen - wish she had written more of these, but it is stand alone. Also by Jo Walton, The King’s Peace (and 2 sequels).

Loved The Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewelling. It is first in a trilogy.

YA - I read Caraval by Stephanie Garner this year. It was decent, although I thought a little repetitive by the end. I also kind of liked A College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer (liked it well enough to go in to the sequel, which is sitting in the stack by my bed).

I’ve enjoyed Juliette Marillier a lot. I read everything she publishes.

Maybe can post more later, I have to work now… (so sad, want to go read)

Check out December Bookclub choice in the Parents’ cafe! :wink:

Someone recommended Tailchaser’s Song by Tad Williams to me recently. Read and thought it was decent. It is a cat fantasy quest…

I liked Tiger Burning Bright by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

I really like the Jack Whyte books that start with The Skystone. But maybe they aren’t fantasy — technically maybe historical fiction, but they are a retelling of the Arthurian legends.

The Temeraire series. Napoleanic era, plus dragons.

try V. E. Schwab or Neal Shusterman
I love Naomi Novik’s Uprooted
My daughter is a huge Diana Wynne Jones fan - it was a very sad day in our house when she passed away!

Loved Diana Wynned Jones - she had wizard boarding school long before Harry Potter. Some of her books are really children’s books, but many are at least YA.

If you want to read some classic children’s fantasy E. Nesbit is really great.

While I like her sci fi better, I recently reread Lois McMaster’s Bujold’s fantasy series and liked them even better the second time around. (Chalion/World of the Five Gods). There’s also a series of novellas (Penric books) set in this world that are a lot of fun. I disliked The Sharing Knife books however.

There’s a lot of S & M sex, in Jacqueline Carey’s Phedre books, but if you can get past that (or enjoy it!), she creates a really fascinating alternate world centered on something rather like France, but where religion has taken a very different turn.

I also vote for Naomi Novik, I like her recent books better than the Temeraire ones.

Have you read Patricia McKillip? I like some better than others, but when she’s on her game she’s fantastic.

I’ve been reading Ilona Andrews’ Magic Bites series - urban fantasy a la The Dresden Files, set in Atlanta. Magic works intermittantly.

I also really like Charles DeLint. Urban fantasy set in Newford, Canada which bears a resemblence to Ottowa, artists and musicians and fairies (mostly Irish/Welsh) and Native American magic/folklore mixed up. There’s probably an ideal order, but most of the books stand alone, though a major character in one, may show up as a minor character in another. I don’t think there’s a better book about what it’s like to be a painter than Memory & Dream. I also loved Trader, about a luthier who unexpectedly finds he’s traded bodies with someone and has to figure out what to do about it.

So far no S&M in Jacqueline Carey’s Starless. But I’m in the early pages. :slight_smile: I do like her Phedre books, but they are not for everyone.

For urban fantasy try Ben Aaronovitch and Benedict Jacka.

Lois McMaster Bujold mainly writes SF, but has some great historical-inspired fantasy too - start with The Curse Of Chalion.

Jo Walton is great, and she tries something different each time.

I loved Ankaret Wells’ The Maker’s Mask and The Hawkwood War (technically SF but v strong fantasy elements), although I didn’t like Heavy Ice (a semi-sequel to the former two, but set 100 years later and more SF in feel.

Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

Kate Elliott may be worth trying too.

So many more authors with many books. Some are sci fi as well. Modesitt, Michelle Sagara, all Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon, Anne McCaffrey’s Dragon Riders of Pern (her kids do a good job after her death. David Weber’s Honor Harrington series is good for the first ones, later too political techy. Many Bujold books are fun reads. Sharon Lee. I’ve read hundreds of the genres and forget so many authors. Would rather read than type here…

As my username implies, I recommend The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper.

No one here has yet mentioned Stephen King’s The Dark Tower fantasy, the best of which is book 4, Wizard and Glass. The later books in the series do not live up to the stronger earlier books. I liked books 2-4 more than book 1, too, but you’ll want to read 1 for background. Or Stephen King’s one book fantasy, The Eye of the Dragon. And his The Stand is both post-apocalyptic story and good vs. evil fantasy.

Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind, mentioned upthread, is great, too.

Libba Bray’s The Diviners
NK whatsherface The Fifth Season trilogy
City of Amber
City of Lies (it’s part of a series and I can’t remember the first one)

but absolutely read Philip Reeves’ Mortal Engines before the movies! great, great stuff, I think there are 5 books in all if you include offshoots

Definitely not for everyone, but fanfiction in your favourite universe can make for a wonderful escape. Some fanfiction is so well written you’ll be wondering why these writers aren’t published authors.

From your list it looks like you like broad sweeping fanatasies, so you might enjoy one of my favorites, Steven Erikson’s Malazan series. My screen name is taken from one of his characters; Erickson has a real gift for inventive and interesting names.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malazan_Book_of_the_Fallen

For some darker fare, if you’ve never tried the grimdark genre check out Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself, which is the first of a trilogy. Pretty dark stuff but great characterization and anti-heroes.

And not quite pure fantasy, but if you’d like to give the steampunk genre a try, I also liked Perdido Street Station by China Miéville. He (she?) writes some wonderfully beautiful and bizarrely original stories. Perdido Street Station is the first in a loosely-connected trilogy.

@anomander I’ve tried to read Erickson but didn’t like it for some reason and dropped fairly quickly. Weird because I’ve read many glowing reviews. Abercrombie is good but not one of my favorites.

Thank you everybody for lots of great suggestions. Now I’ll have something to fill the long winter evenings besides editing essays!

I’m a big fan of Jon Skovron’s Empire of Storms trilogy. He has done a great job of world building and I suspect he has other stories planned.

Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes series is also very well done.

Check out your public library. Often they will label the spine with sci fi or fantasy.