Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

^ This man speaks truths. It is Phenomenal. I look forward to him finishing the first Arc and moving on to the second Arc in his world. Have you read any of the Novellas? I think the one about Bast is out in an Anthology and the second one comes out this month some time.

Favorite Series of all time is easily The Black Company by Glen Cook. Amazing read. He needs to step up his writing speed, he is almost as bad as G.R.R. Martin, except in his time between books about The Black Company he writes Fantasy Detective Novels which are also awesome. As good as The Dresden Files in my opinion.

Probably ASOIAF/Game of Thrones. Cliched, sure, but I don't care, I like what I like.

'Imajica' by Clive Baker
'The Furys' series by Jim Butcher
Of course Discworld, but really it's the Guards series of books that I love. Closely followed by the Witch's.
'The Amtrak Wars' by Patrick Tilley
'The Mars' books by Kim Stanley Robinson
'Foundation' by Arthur C Clark

I have all of 'The Sword Of Truth' novels on my kindle but as yet have not read any. I'm cautiously looking forward to it.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
^ This man speaks truths. It is Phenomenal. I look forward to him finishing the first Arc and moving on to the second Arc in his world. Have you read any of the Novellas? I think the one about Bast is out in an Anthology and the second one comes out this month some time.

No, I haven't read anything else in this universe I only just picked up "The Name of the Wind" because it was highly recommended by a podcast that I listen.

I'm going to have to look the novellas up after I finish this.

http://www.bernardcornwell.net/series/the-saxon-stories/

happily the new one is out this month.

Much love for the previously mentioned Drgaonlance, Thomas Covenant and Lawhead's Pendragon trilogy.


Big soft spot for Blyton's Famous Five ( and to a lesser extent the Secret Seven et al) when I was younger.

Any series by Brandon Sanderson, I will consume without remorse.

A lot of the series I've been reading aren't finished yet, so it's hard to pass judgement.

Brandon Sanderson.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
^ This man speaks truths. It is Phenomenal. I look forward to him finishing the first Arc and moving on to the second Arc in his world. Have you read any of the Novellas? I think the one about Bast is out in an Anthology and the second one comes out this month some time.

No, I haven't read anything else in this universe I only just picked up "The Name of the Wind" because it was highly recommended by a podcast that I listen.

I'm going to have to look the novellas up after I finish this.

Neither have I, was hoping to get a review!

 whembly wrote:
Pillars of Creation was the worst of the series.

I'd advocate just skipping it altogether.

*shrugs*

I'm gonna go ahead and hand in one of my Nerd cards: Pillars of Creation is the only book from the series I've read.

I don't even know how I ended up owning it, I think I got it free from work. I ended up with a lot of free books working at Barnes and Noble, including a number of advance copies and several books I'd never actually spend money on because it either amused me to no end that it existed(such as a book that's essentially a romance novel about a priest and an altar boy) or that transcended the stereotypes of their genre("Urban Fiction" tends to use a lot of improper grammar and slang as though it was being spoken rather than written and gets a lot of flak for it from the literary community, but there's a few authors who write it more traditionally but have been tarred with the broad brush that writes off the genre as a whole).

The two Claudius books by Robert Graves, 'I, Claudius' and 'Claudius the God' are still my favorite historical fiction books.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 focusedfire wrote:
The Iron Tower Trilogy/series by Dennis Mckeirnan(A complete rip-off of the Lord of the Rings but with a much darker ending)

I thought I was the only person alive who read those books. I read them when I was in middle school, and, even though a HUGE ripoff of Tolkien, I thought they were the so cool....and so dark. I'd love to reread them...wonder if they are any good to read as an adult.

*puts on IOTV and ACH*

Twilight series

Yes I said it because Garrett in the book cracked me up

I read kind of alot, so in no particular order..

Chronicles of Prydain: A real classic
Harry Potter: Deceptively well developed and deep
Original Battletech Novels: Pure mecha fun. A bit uneven (lots of authors) but good fun all around
Eisenhorn/Ravenor: the best 40k fiction ever and some of the only 40k fiction that can hold it's own in the wider fiction market
Gaunt's Ghosts: Footslogging good fun.
Dune: Need I say more
Redwall: Talking animals are go! (though they get a bit repetitive after 10 or so)
Honor Harrington: I normally don't go for "hard" sci-fi, but I've enjoyed all these, even the side series'.

I'm sure there are more...

Well there are two series that really shaped my love of fantasy and science fiction

Lord of the rings (and really any of the other books like the hobbit and the unfinished tales etc)

Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (someone else mentioned it above sooooo happy someone else read them!) Tough books to read with some very slow parts but that's what I liked about it. Every time I read it I get swept away for some strange reason. I've heard people call it one of the hardest series to get through but for me its just great. I like the authors writing style a lot and picked up 2312 should be a similar style.

Also I recently picked up Name of the Wind. Been looking at it every time I go into the book store for over a year now but finally decided to grab it but I have no time to read it right now.

Also have heard great things (as well as bad things) about the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe I have the first half but haven't touched it yet either.


Wow I just realized my collecting of books and not reading them is nearly as bad as my consistent buying of new models and rarely painting....
....
Just kidding I already knew that

 jasper76 wrote:
The two Claudius books by Robert Graves, 'I, Claudius' and 'Claudius the God' are still my favorite historical fiction books.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 focusedfire wrote:
The Iron Tower Trilogy/series by Dennis Mckeirnan(A complete rip-off of the Lord of the Rings but with a much darker ending)

I thought I was the only person alive who read those books. I read them when I was in middle school, and, even though a HUGE ripoff of Tolkien, I thought they were the so cool....and so dark. I'd love to reread them...wonder if they are any good to read as an adult.

I've read a good chunk of those.. and... meh? They were okay. I liked the Shannara stuff way more and didn't include those in my favorite series. Although now that I think about it, I liked the Word and the Void books enough to maybe qualify.

Honor Harrington

Megghhhh... I hate Honor Harrington. The whole series annoys me. The Honor series and basically everything by SM Stirling fall under the same nebulous category of unreadability where something about them strips away my suspension of disbelief. It's probably about how AWSUM they make their protagonists and their respective societies even in the face of their own universes internal logic.

Ender's Game Series by Orson Scott Card.
Bob Lee Swagger Series by Stephen Hunter (Although only Point of Impact and I, Sniper were really great imo)
Dark Tower Series by Stephen King.

Speaking of sci-fi, I also enjoyed the 2001 series of books (it was 2001, 2021, and another one IIRC)

Hanskrampf wrote:
Ender's Game Series by Orson Scott Card.

That's one I forgot. I even liked the later books that some folks poo-poo'ed.
Enders Shadow is an absolutely brilliant retelling of the same time period as the original book but from a very different perspective.

Percy Jackson
The Black Company
Women of the Otherword

I searched for The Black Company at an online book store, and apparently the series is collected in some pretty sweet omnibuses. That might be what I'm gonna read next, backlog be damned.

 LordofHats wrote:
Percy Jackson

I have to say I prefer the sequel series, Heroes of Olympus, in terms of how it's written and the character work. And the last one that just came out was awesome! Shame it's the end of the series, but 10 books across the two series isn't bad (and I'm sure there'll be some crossover between them and the Kane/new Asgard series at some point down the line),

The Dune series is a little lackluster IMHO. The first book is a classic, and should be read by everyone. The second is not bad, but not nearly as good. Books 3-4 are mediocre at best. The last two get better, but don’t justify the investment of the middle books. The new stuff put out by his son (and other writers) is acceptable, but also skippable.

I’d add to the list:

most of William Gibson’s work (Neromancer being the big one, but he works in trilogies and his others are good as well)
David Brin’s Uplift series.
Lois Mcmaster Bjuld’s Vorkosokin works.
Kieth Laumer’s Bolo series
David Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers.

Probably more, but I’d have to clean the clutter off of my bookshelves and see what’s up there.

 Paradigm wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Percy Jackson

I have to say I prefer the sequel series, Heroes of Olympus, in terms of how it's written and the character work. And the last one that just came out was awesome! Shame it's the end of the series, but 10 books across the two series isn't bad (and I'm sure there'll be some crossover between them and the Kane/new Asgard series at some point down the line),

I consider them all to be one series, but I agree. Heroes of Olympus is great (haven't read the last book yet). I kind of felt like the first few books (Lightning Thief up to Titan's Curse) were just okay, but not great, but once we got to book 4 I think each new entry has been better than the last.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Percy Jackson

I have to say I prefer the sequel series, Heroes of Olympus, in terms of how it's written and the character work. And the last one that just came out was awesome! Shame it's the end of the series, but 10 books across the two series isn't bad (and I'm sure there'll be some crossover between them and the Kane/new Asgard series at some point down the line),

I consider them all to be one series, but I agree. Heroes of Olympus is great (haven't read the last book yet). I kind of felt like the first few books (Lightning Thief up to Titan's Curse) were just okay, but not great, but once we got to book 4 I think each new entry has been better than the last.

Agreed. The first few suffer from the same '11-13 year old kids just couldn't do that, even with superpowers' syndrome that kills the first couple of Potter books, but after about the fourth of the first series, the tone got much more mature, and especially the last couple have been pretty dark in places (not to mention better written once he switched to te 3rd person/multiple narrators structure).

Read the last one as soon as you can, it's great!

I never liked Harry Potter, so I'm probably a little bias, but I see Rick Riodan as a perfect Children's Author. He manages to tell good tense stories, but diffuse the dark tension with some of the most creative humor I've ever read in kids books. Seriously, if how grim dark would these books be without the utter ridiculousness of how he translates Greek myth into the modern world XD

Oh man....Ok. Finished series:

-Reluctant Swordsman by Dave Duncan
-Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher
-Mistworld Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson
-David Gemmell's Troy Series that his wife finished for him
-Empire of Man by John Ringo and David Weber

Series that are ongoing:

-Dresden tops the list
-Honor Harrington Universe by David Weber
-Destroyermen by Taylor Anderson
-Council Wars by John Ringo
-Black Tide Rising by John Ringo
-Into the Looking Glass by John Ringo
-Secret World Chronicles by Mercedes Lackey and others
-Safehold by David Weber
-Heirs of Alexandria by Dave Freer, Eric Flint, and Mercedes Lackey
-Iron Druid by Kevin Hearne
-The Change Series by SM Stirling
-The Drood Chronicles by Simon R. Green (Guilty pleasure)
-The General Series by David Drake and whoever is writing it with him at the moment
-The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

I'm sure I missed some. I couldn't doTerry Goodkinds series after I wanna say book 4 or 5. Couldn't do Wheel of Time either.

 LordofHats wrote:
I never liked Harry Potter, so I'm probably a little bias, but I see Rick Riodan as a perfect Children's Author. He manages to tell good tense stories, but diffuse the dark tension with some of the most creative humor I've ever read in kids books. Seriously, if how grim dark would these books be without the utter ridiculousness of how he translates Greek myth into the modern world XD

Very true. The only comparisons between him and Rowling are that they write for the same audience. Beyond that, Riordan writes better, has better plot and characters and as you say, the humour is excellently counterpoised with tension to keep the whole thing interesting. I still enjoy Harry Potter and re-read them every few years, but beyond being fun reads there's not as much to them as some people claim.

It's just a shame that the Percy Jackson film was an absolute tragedy...

Not really a "series" per se, but James Lovegrove's "Age of" series of books has been fun thus far.

Some of them dont get high reviews on places like Amazon, but having read Age of Odin, and just picked up Age of Shiva, I will say that I personally enjoy them, as there are things in Age of Odin that kind of make you wonder, or put things a bit into perspective.

Misplaced Legion

Can't believe that I left this one out.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. (A mandatory primer for anyone just getting into the sci-fi genre.)

Normally I'd get docked a sci-fi geek point but seeing as I am the first to mention the series in this thread, I think that I am safe.

Later,
ff

 Aesop the God Awful wrote:
I searched for The Black Company at an online book store, and apparently the series is collected in some pretty sweet omnibuses. That might be what I'm gonna read next, backlog be damned.

I would check Barnes and Nobles, they always have them on the shelf when I go in there. The Omnibus are nice, they even have The Silver Spike in them. Which honestly you do not have to read unless you really hate loose ends.

ohhhh tricky question.

1.the hunger games (debatable.)
2. the ranger's apprentice. (for pure fantasy inspiration.)
3. the HALO series.