The High Fantasy Reading Thread

Continuing the discussion from Whats up lounge:

Seems like there are a lot of lovers of High Fantasy on the forum. We need our own space. Continuing from where we left off, we’ve been discussing Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, and Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Other mentions, Brandon Sanderson and others.

Let’s keep it going.

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Yay! Earthlings

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I just happened to finish the Mistborn Trilogy. It was awesome. Not sure if I want to start the companion series yet though. I have a long list of things to read. I’ll probably read something like Elantris next, before i get stuck on a long series.

Never read the whole Ender series. Just the first. Was the whole thing good?

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Ok so I’m pretty new to this genre. What is a good first book to break me in?

Not really big on what you call “High Fantasy”, but I really enjoyed S.M. Sterlings Nantucket series, and the first half of the which is part of the “Emberverse” he created, beginning with Dies The Fire. I lost interest during the 2nd half of the series.

I am a huge Sam Sisavath fan, with his whole Purge of Babylon series, and spin-offs. More zombie apocalypse than high fantasy. His zombies aren’t zombies…they are ghouls.

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To anyone that’s interested. I loved em! Some other folks… Not so much. Lol. Sorry, not sorry

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Yeah, never have finished LOTR. Fall asleep every time I try to read it. The writing style is just so different.

@Englishd I would read Ender’s Game. It’s a pretty quick read and most everyone loves it.

I’m not saying it was a bad series. I’m just saying that all the descriptions could have been tossed. He doesn’t need to explain rape in gory detail or talk about how soldiers bashed out the brains of every child and baby in a village. Sometimes it just got to be too much and I felt physically Ill. I think Goodkind is a good writer and he has a great story to the series, but he’s also a bit screwed up in the head.

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I’ve seen the movie and liked it so I’m assuming the book is better. I will start there

As always. The book had so much more depth. Plus if you want, you can continue the series. Haven’t read the rest of the series personally, but the reviews are good.

Anyone out there read Dune? I’ve always wanted to read it, but have never gotten around to it.

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The Mistborn sequels are okay, but not nearly as good as the trilogy. My advice though is that if you want to read them at some point, read them now while the trilogy is freash in your mind. I waited awhile and I have a horrible memory, so some things that came up I just couldn’t remember the significance if.

The Ender universe books are awesome. All of them. So unique too. The first 4 books are a series in the true sense (Ender’s Game, Speaker, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind). Did you read all if them? They are all so good. Then, there’s the Shadow Series, and that is a standalone series. The coolest thing is that the first one, Ender’s Shadow, is the same story as Ender’s Game, but from Bean’s perspective. Really very unique and cool to write the same story from someone else’s perspective. Then the rest of the Shadow books are about what happened on Earth after the war ended and the battle children returned to earth. Lots of politics and wars, and romance (although as Megan said, he’s not great with romance). Love stories anyway. Then there are some books filling in Ender’s story between Ender’s Game and Speaker. Then there are some standalone stories. Then there’s the Formic Wars series, which is the story of the first time the Buggers attacked earth, centered on Mazer Rackham (sp?). So, you can really pick and choose what to read, it’s not a sequential series like Wheel if Time.

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I recommend starting with Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Apprentice. It is the first in 5 sets of series. So, you can read the first three, then set it aside if you don’t like it. Each trilogy (except the fourth has four books) stands alone in some ways, but continues in other ways. Anyway, I think you’ll really like the characters, they are very real, with real flaws and shortcomings. Sometimes they make really stupid decisions. Oh, and there are dragons. Not so much in the first trilogy, mostly in the second and the fourth.

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I will caution you that the other books in the Ender’s Game series are very different from Ender’s Game. Ender’s Game is Sci Fi. Speaker is a lot of cultural anthropology, and has a lot of characters, and a lot of people don’t like it, but it is my favorite. Xenocide gets more into Sci Fi, ecology, genetics, politics, and war. Children of the Mind is metaphysics. So, if you love Ender’s Game and are expecting more of the same, you will be disappointed.

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Oh, yes, Dune and its sequels are very good!

Similar: the Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Nars, Blue Mars) is really, really good. But it’s more hard sci Fi. The science in it, especially the ecology, is REALLY good.

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I try not to have expectations going into books. I try keeping an open mind about them

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I’d only read Ender’s Game. I’d like to read the other three in the series though. Maybe I’ll have to reread it. I’ll keep in mind the difference in the other books.

Is Sorcerer’s Apprentice that good? Sounds like you hail it above other comparative series. Also, is it completed? I dont have the time to wait for books to come out. Can’t stand that. I’ll wait for 10 years to read a series.

I will add Dune to the list.

Hey, here’s a question. What’s your opinion of Harry Potter? I know a lot of people who read tombs and eternal series don’t like it. Think it’s cheap writing made to make money. I personally enjoyed the books. The movies were good as well.

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Assassin’s Apprentice is SO good. As I was saying in another reply, that series is a great one, not only because of the story and the writing (she is SUCH a good writer) but because it is written in chunks. There are 5 chunks so far. The 5th is not finished, but it doesn’t matter in terms of enjoying the other four. You can totally read the first three books and stop if you want, because it is a complete story. Now, I don’t recommend starting with the second or third or fourth trilogy, because it would lose a lot of cool links between them, but the point is you could, if you wanted to. For example, if you really wanted to just read about dragons, you could read the fourth set of four books, and have a complete story. So, for me, it’s the best of both worlds. I haven’t finished the series (not all the books in the 5th set are out), so happily there’s more to come (I get really depressed when a series ends), but I don’t feel like I’m left hanging on the previous 13 books.

I read Robin Hobb when I was raging drunk. I remember really liking the first 2 but never finished the third, probably because of the drinking. I will definately put that high on the reread list! I am very hot or miss on first person, but I remember that she did it well. Jacqueline Carey is by far the best first person writer I’ve ever read. Her Kushiel books are beyond phenomenal If you don’t have a problem with graphic, interesting, alternative sex type stuff. She’s top 3 for me. She writes alternative historic fantasy, or something like that. Definately not for everyone, but damn good intrigue and plot.

How do we feel about Terry Brooks? He was my first after Tolkien and I’ve read a TON by him.

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Robin Hobb doesn’t write in first person…(I don’t think… I guess I could check)