Fantasy Book Club Series discussion
Group Info
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Introductions, say hello to everyone
Hello, good readers! I'm Sunny and just joined Goodreads last month. I wasn't even aware of this site! Now that I have found it, I am enjoying it so decided to join a book club. I am a huge fantasy reader, got my first introduction when I was middle school and a friend thought I might enjoy Raymond E. Feist's books. He was right and I still read his books to this day. I hope to find more fantasy novels to read by being a member of this club.
Sunny, have you read Howl's Moving Castle? Love your profile pic.
Traci wrote: "Sunny, have you read Howl's Moving Castle? Love your profile pic."I have not actually read it but plan on it. I have seen the film by Hayao Miyazaki who likes to make animations based off British novels.
The movie and book are actually quite different. One of my top favorite books though.Welcome to the club. :)
Hi everyone I am from Ipswich, England. I love reading fantasy and have been a member of Fantasy Book Club for the last few months. I am a nurse and have 3 boys under 10 my husband also loves fantasy so we often read the same books. I am looking forward to discussions about the whole series of books.
Welcome Sam and Sunny. I hope you'll join us in reading Theft of Swords this month.Howl's moving castle is a great book. I'm not as fond of the movie because as Traci mentioned it is MUCH different and I prefer the story line of the book over the movie's interpretation.
G'day all, heard about GoodReads on Amazon Kindle so I thought I'd wander by, sign up and see if there were any interesting conversations.A little about myself? Am an Aussie author (fantasy) and have been a dyed-in-the-wool bookworm all my life. Always have been keen on fantasy epic book series, especially tightly written trilogies that don't feel the necessity to expand to more titles (I'm looking at you Robert Jordan). Also greatly enjoy the novels of Charles de Lint, Susan Cooper, Mary Stewart and Jack Whyte.
Welcome everyone that has recently joined! Sorry I'm a little late in welcoming some of you; I've been a bit inactive since I've been traveling.
Traci wrote: "The movie and book are actually quite different. One of my top favorite books though.Welcome to the club. :)"
I assumed they were just based off the differences between The Borrowers (novel) and the film The Secret World of Arrietty which is based off the novel. Thank you. I will definitely check the book out.
Elizabeth wrote: "Welcome Sam and Sunny. I hope you'll join us in reading Theft of Swords this month.
Howl's moving castle is a great book. I'm not as fond of the movie because as Traci mentioned it is MUCH diffe..."
I will definitely try to read it!
Welcome Rosemary! and Traci - looking forward to chatting with you for the group reads! - Fun Fun!
Welcome Mark, and congratulations on your book. It's not an easy life to choose but it can be very rewarding and I hopy it will become a huge success.
Mark wrote: "Lizzy wrote: "Welcome, Mark!"thanks very much, everyone on this sites really nice, thats a novalty when it comes to the internet!
cool profile picture btw. Is it by any chance Sherlock?"
O.o It is! Quite so! Do you watch it?
Hi, my name's Jim. Like many people I got back into fantasy after reading GRRM, and in the wait for Dance With Dragons started reading Wheel of Time. I'm in the middle of reading that series, and also recently started The Dark Tower. This year I want to finish these two series and also try to read some of the new fantasy debuts like Prince of Thorns. I also want to try out some Robin Hobb, Joe Abercrombie and Greg Keyes' Thorn and Bone books. Would love to read the Malazan books at some point, but I'll probably start those after the final WOT books comes out (there's only so many characters you can keep in your head!
Mod
Welcome, Jim! Robin Hobb is excellent, I'd highly recommend her to anyone. Hope you enjoy the group c:
Mark wrote: "Thanks for the comment michael and i have to say, when i said i want to read michael sullivans books i was refering to your books but got your name wrong! lol"Wow...glad to hear it. There are so many Sullivans that are also writers (even two Michael J. Sullivans that I know of) that I just figured John Sullivan was yet another one - I'm glad to be the one you were referring to.
Jim wrote: "This year I want to finish these two series and also try to read some of the new fantasy debuts like Prince of Thorns."I almost done with Prince of Thorns, and although I generally don't like "dark" fantasy Mark Lawrene does it well and I would highly recommend the book.
Wow - my first post responded to by Michael J Sullivan. Colour me impressed. Can I expect GRRM or Joe Abercrombie to chip in at some point? Actually, despite your endorsement, Michael, I may have to now postpone my read of Prince of Thorns and go for the Riyria Revelations instead. After all, Mark Lawrence has never personally responded to any of my postings. I only wish that Orbit had gone with your cover designs instead, which are, for me, wonderfully evocative. Don't get me wrong, the Orbit covers are great, but I find photorealistic characters on the cover sort of wrong for the fantasy genre. It's too concrete - too prosaic. There's also something a bit prescriptive about it, like "this is what the mental cartoon in your head should be like when you're reading this book". Well, I don't want my imagination to be regulated in that way. Anyway, I've gone massively off-topic for an introductions thread...
Welcome Jim and Mark it's great having you in the group.
Jim wrote: "Wow - my first post responded to by Michael J Sullivan. Colour me impressed. Can I expect GRRM or Joe Abercrombie to chip in at some point? Actually, despite your endorsement, Michael, I may have t..."Lol Jim...interacting with readers is the fun part of my day. Thanks for speaking my name along with Abercrombie and GRR...I'm not sure we are apples and apples but I think I can consider myself in the fruit category.
PoT or ToS either is a good choice I think. Mine is light his is dark so maybe let you mood at the time guide you.
I'm not a fan of characters on the cover period as I want people to come up with there own ideas. But cover design is a marketing decision and I trust they know what they are doing there. The first two books are already in second printing so I think it is working.
Michael wrote: "Mine is light his is dark so maybe let you mood at the time guide you..."It's grey and dull in the UK at the moment, so I could use some more light and less dark. ToS duly ordered from Amazon and will be not-the-next-book-but-the-one-after that I read.
Great to hear Jim...When you get it please join us in the Riyria Revelation's folder to discuss your opinions on the book.
Will do Elizabeth. I'm slotting ToS in between books 9 and 10 of Wheel of Time, so it should at least give me some temporary respite from all the braid pulling and skirt straightening (unless there's lots of that too in the Riyria Revelations).
Never read WoT so not sure what you are referring to - but it doesn't sound very "exciting".
I am of course exaggerating for comic effect (but not as much as you might think!) This is how Robert Jordan lets us know when the various female characters in his opus are feeling piqued. Sometimes, they also pout or raise their chin slightly. If you're lucky they might call some man who happens to be in their vicinity a 'wool-headed lummox', but generally speaking that's a far too ostentatious display of emotion for his heroines.
Ah...gotcha...Maybe it's a biproduct of when WoT was written? I think you'll really enjoy how women are developed in the current series we are reading. Arista and Thrace/Modina are some of the best examples of good female characters I've ever seen. Especially in the latest books as events that happen over the course of the story help to shape them like clay into what they will become - good fun.
Sounds great - should be starting ToS in a week or two. I tend to read a few blogs like Wertzone, Nethspace, Pat's Fantasy Hotlist, Dibble of Ink, SFF etc. and so knew about the Riyria Revelations from reading a few reviews from those sites. What interests me about it most is that it was self-published first and then picked up by a major publisher when it started to get a lot of attention of the internet. (At least that's how I understand it from what I've read from blogs and reviews.) The Wertzone review for ToS was a bit mixed though, and made it sound like 'Lethal Weapon in Westeros' (which sounds genius idea to me).
I'm not familar with the various review sites. Though from Goodreads and Amazon - the books get very good reviews. I think "critics" might think that it is too "light" or lacking in depth. But actually that's not true AT ALL. The books are built overtime so yeah the first one might not seem like anything special but it lays the founation for some pretty amazining things to come. I'm in a "re-read" of the first books and there is a lot there that you don't even realize until you have hind sight of 20-20. I'm actually very impressed with the way it was constructed.
I like the sound of that - complexity should be built gradually over time. Sometimes authors like Martin and Jordan hit you at once with a lots of new characters, places and relationships which (for me at least) makes my brain feel overloaded. I see there's a discussion thread for the first 5 chapters - I'll post my initial thoughts when I get that far.
Hi everyone, I'm from Turkey. I am a huge fan of Tolkien. after reading Lord Of The Rings (many times) i thought it's over and i can't enjoy another book that much. I couldn't find that book, yet, but i'm reading George Martin's " A song of ice and fire" series and i really liked it. I finished four books in a few months and i'm waiting for Dance with the dragons' paperback edition. While waiting for it, i am going to read Prince of Thorns.
OMG Estel, You have one of my FAVE characters from Despicable Me!!
I have just finished Donald Kingsbury The Moon Goddess and the Son. It was very cool!! Have you guys heard of it? I found it at a garage sale a while back.
Joann
Welcome, Lucinda! o.o we have some similar authors. Cool!
Hope you like the group c:
Hi everyone! I am Shawn and I am a lover of fantasy. My favorite authors are the usual fantasy fare: GRRM, Robin Hobb, Tolkien, Brandon Sanderson, Stephen Lawhead, etc etc.
Welcome, Shawn! Seems like we have quite a few authors in common, too. c:
Welcome Estel, Shawn, and Lucinda. And Congrats Lucinda - I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to write a book - I wish you well with yours!
Hello! I just started really using goodreads after creating an account a while ago. I am an anthropology/Psychology undergraduate at university of Maryland and I love fantasy and I read voraciously. So I am always looking for reccomendations and willing to share my own!
Hi Everyone,I'm Anna from Poland, and I'm great fan of fantasy books. My favourite series are LOTR (of course...), Tad Williams' "Memory,Sorrow and Thorn" and recently Songs of Ice & Fire. I'm also enjoying coming back from time to time to oldies like Witch World series from Andre Norton (I loved them as teenager in times, long long ago ;-)). I hope to find more interesting tips for reading in this bookclub.
Welcome Julia and Anna. I hope you'll join us on our series read of The Riyria Revelations. Anna...I "think" it is also available as a Polish translation but not 100% sure - or even if it is releaed - but I seem to recall seeing something about that. Maybe Michael will drop in and let us know for sure.
I haven't introduced myself yet -- lurking in the pages though for a few weeks.Hello. I too love all things fantastical, and i'd rather a series than a standalone any day -- as long as the writer hasn't died, or doesn't take 6 years to write the next instalment. *cough* notmentioninganynames *cough*
I also like to write.
Looking forward to the Tawny man discussions... My favourite Hobb trilogy. I mean, c'mon! Stone Dragons = awesome.
Crap -- sorry if that is a spoiler. But this is a safe place right?
I got started with Frank Herbert, the first two of his Dune series. Strangely enough I had trouble getting hooked up with JRR Tolkien, but finally did. Current faves are:George RR Martin
Greg Keyes
Patrick Rothfuss
Joe Abercrombie
Neil Gaiman (sp?)
I'm a new author, looking to build some name recognition and to stay in touch with what readers are talking about in my favorite genre (though I admit to tending to favor a blend of science fiction and fantasy). I've published two novels (the first with Double Dragon Press and the second self-published), and in the interest of encouraging people to spend their time with a writer they've never before heard of, I've created a 100% discount coupon (FREE!) for my anthology at smashwords. Please avail yourselves of it , and spread the word. Enter the coupon code PZ55V at checkout at www.smashwords.com/books/view/122483 for your free download!
You could also check out my website www.ericdiehl.com
Enjoy!
Now I'll go poke around the site some more...
Hi everyone. I'm Jason from Minneapolis. Been a member of Goodreads for a little while but just now starting to explore the site more and get involved in some groups and discussions.Besides fantasy, I enjoy reading books on Indo-Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and speculative fiction. I'm maninly drawn to stories that have a sense of wonder about them (hence my interest in fantasy) regardless of genre.
I would say my favorite fantasy author is currently R. Scott Bakker and I love all his fantasy books but my favorite of his books is Disciple of the Dog, which about a PI who can't forget. Anything. Ever.
Some other authors I enjoy are Michael Chabon, Jaqueline Carey, NK Jemisin, Steven Erikson, Tad Wililams, Clive Barker, China Miéville, Umberto Eco and Mark Z. Danielewski,House of Leaves is probably my all time favorite book.
Welcome Eric, T.B., and Dharmakirti - glad to have you in the group.
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Fantasy Book Club Series
Books mentioned in this topic
The Waking Fire (other topics)Fool's Assassin (other topics)
The Chronicles of Narnia (other topics)
Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (other topics)
The Warded Man (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Robin Hobb (other topics)Robin Hobb (other topics)
Brandon Sanderson (other topics)
Brent Weeks (other topics)
Michael J. Sullivan (other topics)
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How many wpm you running at right now?