Fantasy Book Club discussion
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Introductions - tell us a little about yourself

The Unicorn Hunt left and I'm counting down the min..."
Shel - is this your first run through the Niccolo series? What Dunnett reveals in the last few pages will make you nuts - you'll HAVE to re-read - grin. She's a master at flipping perspectives.
And thanks ;). Chances are, we share an admiration of similar things.

I read the Lymond series a few years ago. At first when I started the Niccolo books I really missed Francis Crawford, but Nicholas has grown on me :)

Thieves World did get a little graphic and I think part of that was a result of the way the authors could write about each others characters. It's my understanding that the author's only restriction was they couldn't kill off other author's characters. George RR Martin and Melinda Snodgrass have apparently avoided that kind of vehement maliciousness in the Wild Cards series by having a more structured approach to writers using other author's characters.

Nel, nice reading list. When you get some words written and want to work on your craft try critters.org or http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/ both are great for new writers. Cheers,

Been a complete bookworm since I first read Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising cycle in 3rd grade, along with the Hobbit. Since then, I've grown to love fantasy and sci-fi along with a dash of detective fiction and some classics and pretty much always have a book close at hand.
Favorite authors:
Robin Hobb
Tad Williams
Rex Stout
John Bellairs
Roald Dahl
Agatha Christie
J.V. Jones
Scott Lynch
Joe Abercrombie
Dan Simmons (esp. Ilium and Olympos!!!)
BTW saw a mention of Patricia Wrede -- LOVED those books when I was younger, along with Laurence Yep's books about Shimmer.
Also, I'm thinking about trying The Crown Conspiracy at some point... just haven't gotten around to it :)
Okay I should stop editing this post, but I just realized I left out Dave Duncan. A Man of His Word and A Handful of Men are two of my all time favorite series.

Have you read the Seventh Sword trilogy by Duncan? His best work IMO.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
The problem I had with the eight books you mention, good as they are, is that ultimately the story depends on the gods coming down and fixing things. The only thing that makes it work is which god and why.

The Name of the Wind
Neverwhere
American Gods
Percy Jackson series
Harry Potter (never read it till like 3 months ago)
and R A Slavatores first 6 Drizzt books
oh and The Dark Tower series (i loved it)
Im looking for suggestions since im sort of a noob at this, im a really fast reader whenever i have the time, i read The name of the wind in 5 days. Also, i love trilogies or series. So there you go. Nice to meet you all.

Anyway, I'm Hollie, 28, born and raised in Hawaii. I lived in Colorado for five years for college, but somehow found myself back on the islands again. I read almost exclusively fantasy, therefore this is the only group I've joined. I do, however, enjoy fantasy of widely varying types. From YA to epic, vampires to wizards, romantic to dark and gritty; I love them all, and most of what I read gets passed to my brother, and we engage in lengthy and enjoyable discourse. I'm fairly easy to please, so my list of favorite authors/books would be far too long for a simple post, but I've really been enjoying discovering a lot of the newer fantasy authors lately (Rothfuss, Sanderson, Abercrombie, Cashore, Weeks), as well as many that are new to me (Gaiman, Keyes). I'm also of course a big fan of many big names and veterans (Jordan, Hayden, Bishop, Salvatore, Rowlings), just to name a very few that come to mind.
Because of this, and my near constant trolling of authors blogs and suggestions, I have a "to read" list about a mile long, and while I devour books fairly quickly, depending on how much reading time I can squeak into the nooks and crannies of my day, what I have will still keep me occupied for many months. As I do almost all my reading via Kindle now days, and my husband cannot complain about books stacking up in every corner anymore, I accumulate more material than ever. I think I may jump in and read American Gods this month though.
I also use far too many commas, and am very a long winded writer, despite my sometimes desperate attempts at brevity. So with that, I will stop. It's nice to meet everyone :)

That's a big part of why I like them -- I love how complete of an ending it is. Plus I just love the world of Midkemia; the magic system was really cool and I loved how Duncan created the races and played upon the stereotypes of these mythical creatures to create a social commentary. I love the swashbucklingness of the action and the wistfulness of the romance.
And yeah, I've read the first two of the Seventh Sword series--have the third, just haven't gotten around to it. Great fun -- I enjoyed Duncan's earlier work more than his whole foray into the King's Blades world. The Great Game is an excellent series as well, but hard to find. I think that Duncan has them available on his website for publish-by-request.
Well said Hollie and welcome to the group. I dont think you use too many comma's as that is the way they really should be used, but many people just don't bother. Check out the discussions, I dont usually see any book bashing, as most of the discussions are for better understanding of the novel. Next month we discuss American Gods, so hope you do attend that.
Sam the best recommendations are the books the group have already discussed. as they have been popular enough to win the votes.
Sam the best recommendations are the books the group have already discussed. as they have been popular enough to win the votes.

The Great Game is an excellent series, the Bible in the form of a fantasy novel (sort of). I have all three books. It was the last Duncan I bought or read. I just never felt motivated by the King's Blades or Daggers or whatever.

Anyways, I have always been a big fan of fantasy and I have read many of the "big, epic" stores: LOTR, Hobbit, the Shannara books, the Thomas Covenant series (both of them), The Eternal Champion in is many incarnations, the Amber series, etc. but because of my hiatus from reading, I don't know many of the new talent out there so a club like this is great! I'm looking forward to participating in the discussions. My only promise to my wife is that I stick to Kindle editions whenever possible.




Some of my older favorites are:
Raymond Feist (Magician Series)
Robin Hobb (Farseer)
Zelazny (Chronicles of Amber)
George R.R Martin (A Game of Thrones)
Some of my newer favorites are:
Anything by Jim Butcher (Dresden Files and Codex of Alera)
Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn)
Joe Abercrombie (First Law Series)
Patrick Rothfuss (Name of the Wind)
I could go on for a while so I'll finish with what I'm reading now which is Guy Kay Gavriel's Tigana, Robert Heilein's Stranger in a Strange Land and Outliers (non-fiction but excellent).





It's wonderful to have you among us.


And CJ, I'm glad we'll be seeing some of your backlist in circulation again soon!

These days I am writing my own. My first book The Cat in the Cradle is a Young Adult fantasy novel, meaning that adults will probably enjoy it even more than kids. :) The main character in my book is gay, which may reduce conservative people to bitter tears, but I have a feeling most of us here are too intelligent for such antics.
I'm looking forward to finding book recommendations for author and novels as yet undiscovered by me. Oh, and I could use some friends on here too if anyone wants to add me! :)

Dear CJ
Awesome. I am so glad to hear from you. One of my earlier "This stuff is KILLER" fantasy reading experiences was reading about Morgana (SP?) and her pageboy galloping through stargates (did they steal that idea from you?) and closing them off to various invading hordes and horrors with the ultimate Magic Sword. (That was yours, right?) I have loved your writing ever since, and read more mature works of yours with huge enjoyment, but that got me started, for sure.

Hi
I found you browsing books and profiles and... somehow I got here!
My name's Michelle. I hail from Zimbabwe and lived most of my life in Southern africa... until I decided to marry a highlander. Now I live in Northern Scotland. :-)
Favourite Fantasy Writers: Tolkein, Dianna Wynn Jones, Tanith Lee, Anne McCaffrey, C.J. Cherryh, Andre Norton, Weaveworld by Clive Barker, C S Lewis, Richard Bach... and I'm sure there are others I can't remember now.
Favourite series: The Chanur books by C J Cherryh and Lord of the Rings

I couldn't help but notice that...I've actually read everything on your list except Dianna Wynn Jones. All the others are among my favorites. If you add Janny Wurts (Wars of Light and Shadow), Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman, and Stephen Donaldson (Thomas Covenant Chronicles) that's pretty much my list, too. Good stuff, yes?

Oh I forgot Gaiman and Stephen Donaldson! Now the other two I don't recognise, which is nice. Gives me new authors to look up.
Diana Wynn Jones I read as a teen and her books were a bit like Andre Norton - books meant for young adults. Which reminded me of another author I'd long forgotten and adored when I was little... Alan Garner.
This is fun. :-)

Oh I forgot Gaiman and Stephen Donaldson! Now the other two I don't recognise, which is nice. Gives me new authors to look up.
Diana Wynn Jones I read as a teen and her books were a b..."
Hi, Michelle
Janny Wurts is one of our Goodreads Fantasy Club author/members. She is quite well read and an exceptional storyteller. Try her newest stand-alone first, To Ride Hell's Chasm.
Neal Stephenson is a phenomenon, indeed. Writes everything from S/F - fantasy to Baroque period historical novels. Try Cryptonomicon.

I've saved the names and details onto my computer so that I have them to remind myself next time I go book hunting.

I live in TN. I love Fantasy books. I also love to know everything i can about astronomy and cosmology. I have a bunch of books i want to read. If you know of one that i don't have on mybooks that is really good then please let me know so i can check it out.
thank you

I've read fantasy since I could read pretty much. The perks of an older brother who is an avid fantasy reader and a mom who tried her hardest to keep me supplied with books! Now I have this crazy book addiction for which I blame them both. =) Some of the first fantasy books I remember loving are Brian Jacques' Redwall series. I still always pick up the new book for nostalgia sake even though it doesn't take me long to read through them. =)
My favorite authors (and I'll probably forget someone) are : GRRM, Katherine Kerr, Joe Abercrombie, Kate Elliott, Jennifer Fallon, Neil Gaiman, Robin Hobb, Guy Gavriel Kay, Terry Pratchett, and Anne McCaffrey. I've just recently read Peter V. Brett, Patrick Rothfuss, and Brent Weeks' works and I loved them. Oh and of course Tolkien!
I look forward to meeting you all, discussing great books, and getting awesome new recommendations. My to-read shelf seems to grow faster than I can keep up with, but I love it that way.

My favorite authors are Neil Gaiman, Guy Gavriel, J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, R.A. Salvatore, Josefine Ottesen, Tracy Hickman, Margaret Weis, etc.
I'm looking forward to discus some great fantasy books with nerds like me :)

Welcome to the Fantasy Book Club! I think you'll find a very nice variety of discussion threads. We also have famous authors who contribute their knowledge and impressions. And beginning or not-quite-discovered authors as well. And a couple who are just being discovered. It's exciting. A great forum for fantasy book lovers.


For fairy tale retellings, I've always enjoyed Juliet Marillier, Robin McKinley, and Jane Yolen.


I was never a reader but after I finished the Harry Potter books, I decided that there MUST be other books out there that I could enjoy. At that time, I stayed in YA and kept reading similar finds.
Out of that, I LOVED the Monster Blood Tattoo series and the Bartimaeus Series.
After a few years of YA, I decided to venture into adult reading - I AM 38 years old after all - I have only completed one Adult Fantasy series, Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy (and Tawny Man after that). I loved both of those.
I have been crawling goodreads and some amazon forums to figure out what to read next. Right now, I feel kind of overwhelmed. Generally, I like to keep reading pretty easy because I use it for entertainment.
I am so relieved that I found fantasy because without it, I hate reading!

I got pretty far into Ship of Magic but for some reason, just didn't care for it.
Right now I am trying to read Mists Of Avalon (someone lent it to me) but the writing is very formal and I can't seem to get interested in it. And there doesn't seem to be any magic... boring! :-)


Wendy, I understand about the Mists of Avalon the first time through it took me about 100 pages to really get into it and then I did and I really enjoyed it. Since then I've read it multiple times and it gets better every time. Don't know if it will be that way for you but I thought my experience may help you get through the first part of it, into the "good" parts. But you are right the magic is subtle. David Eddings might be another author to check out....magic right off the bat!

Wendy, I understand about the Mists of Avalon the first time through it took me about 100 pages to really get into it and then I did and I really enj..."
Well, fate has stepped in! I made an unplanned trip to the bookstore (don't normally buy new books...) and asked the local guy for a rec, and he pointed me to David Eddings (3 in 1 volume), Name of the Wind or The Deed of Paksenarrion. I guess I choose Eddings (Belgariad) as much because you mentioned it today as any reason! I'm excited!

I've always loved books and reading, even before I learned how to read I begged people to read to me. My grandmother was my favourite reader. Since we moved sevela times while I was a child books were my best friends, since I could take them with me. I love being surrounded by books.
For a while I was very interested in mythology, including King Arthur and his Knights. Then one day my mom gave me Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon and the rest as they say is history. For a while I was very active with the local Darkover-chapter and some Darkover-stories for the local fan-zines were my first 'finsihed' stories.
Some writers:
Charles de Lint
Storm Constantine
Tanya Huff
Barbara Hambly
Lynn Flewelling
Lois McMaster-Bujold
Patricia Briggs
Book-related anecdotes: friends had to forcefully drag me out of bookstores because I was so caught up in browsing. I also had the habbit to read while walking to the bus-stop and such, and once in a while walked against a lampost.

Wendy, I understand about the Mists of Avalon the first time through it took me about 100 pages to really get into it and then I did and I really enj..."
Well, fate has stepped in! I made an unpl..."
Wise choice, Wendy. Eddings' Belgariad series is actually kind of unique. A pretty simple story, but with a really mythic tone. Big themes. And lots of magic. Lovable characters, too.
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Name of the Wind (other topics)The Fault in Our Stars (other topics)
Prince of Fools (other topics)
The Whitefire Crossing (other topics)
To Ride Hell’s Chasm (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Michael J. Sullivan (other topics)Robin Hobb (other topics)
Patrick Rothfuss (other topics)
Daniel Abraham (other topics)
George R.R. Martin (other topics)
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The Unicorn Hunt left and I'm counting down the minutes until I can sit down tonight and finish it! I will definitely check Ellen Kushner out, I have not read her books. I also have not read YOURS and fully intend on including you in my next purchase! :)