Books!

[Nefastus]

I read a lot of fantasy and horror books, as well as historical stuff. I'm a big fan of darker stuff like H.P Lovecraft's books, and Vampire related books such as books from Vampire: The Requiem. I also enjoy regular fantasy, such as all of the books from Forgotten Realms series, especially books by R.A.Salvatore (Dark Elf, Cleric Quintent) as well as more humorous fantasy as of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. As for history, I love reading about World War 2, Cold War, Polish/Medieval History, and Soviet Union (Mainly Military wise, especially books by Wiktor Suworow)

What about you guys? What do you read, if you read?!

P.S. If you have any good sugestions for dark fantasy, intelligent vampire, or good historical (WW2 mainly) books, please let me know, I'm always looking for good books.

[Legolas]

For the moment I am reading Robert Jordans - Wheel of Time for the third time.
Because the other times the serie wasn't close to be finish.

Im really in to fantasy, can't say I have read many books thats not involve magic and swords =P

[Stark]

Fantasy is my first love, but I also love historical and russian literature. I'm starting to get into philosophy like Nietzsche now.

Some names:
George R.R. Martin(A Song of Ice and Fire being my absolute favorite)
R. Scott Bakker
Steven Erikson
Fyodor Dostoevsky

[myrath]

I love the books by Terry Goodkind. The Wizards Rule series.
I think we're at book 9 or 10 now :P

http://members.aol.com/misuly/goodkind.htm

I really recommend it. Very good story.

[turbografx16]

I've read most of the more well know fantasy series e.g. Forgotten Realms, Dragon Riders of Pern, Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings +Hobbit+Silmarillion etc etc

But my current and all-time favorites are:

Discworld series (especially the early ones) (even though I've already read everyone still my favorite)

Flashman Papers series (Great, great books featuring a great great character)


I also read history, mostly Dark Age but quite a lot of Napoleonic and US Civil War and a little WWII.

Currently I'm enjoying "The Vikings" By Magnus Magnusson and "Military Experience in the Age of Reason" by Christopher Duffy

[Uilamin]

Pratchett is great (his non-disc world stuff and discworld stuff), Dave Berry is great, Salvatore is alright, his demonwar stuff is better than his FR stuff.

Dune was good (i cannot believe i am drawing a blank on who wrote this)

[Deirbhathdellte]

I second George R R Martins - A Song of Ice and Fire,
Salvatore is good too.

[Marrock]

For the moment I am reading Robert Jordans - Wheel of Time for the third time.
Because the other times the serie wasn't close to be finish.

Im really in to fantasy, can't say I have read many books thats not involve magic and swords =P
Great books, only thing I don't like about the series now is he seems to drag everything out more. I love the books though.

[Sprite]

Uilamin the name of the author you're looking for is Frank Herbert! Jennifer Fallon and Sarah Ash are both excellent authors, as well as C.J. Cherryh.

[Sintros]

Fantasy wise I read FR a lot, atm I am still working on the Dark Elf series. Always like Salvatore's books.

Actually Nefastus, I read basically the same history as you do. Anything military and I'll likely read it, but mostly anything about WWII. Also have an interest in Roman history.

I've read about the S.S. quite a bit... only out of interest of course ;)

The history channel sometimes shows some good (detailed) stuff about the S.S. in case anyone shares any interest lol :)

[Spades Felligan]

I love Russian Literature. Anywhere from Chekov's and Babel's short stories; the Red Cavalry stories being my favorite.

"The Kamaroz Brothers", "Father and Son" and "War and Peace" are also good.

[Prezimonto]

Reading is my first love, and runs in my family(I just inherited over 3000 novels from my grandfather who taught himself to read english from first comics and then novels).

Dark fantasy I highly recommend Michael Moorcock. In particular his Elric of Melnibone` novels are excellent. Not quite as dark but still good are Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser novels. And for some darker themed fantasy of a more modern era try Steven Brust's Jhereg, they're not so much dark as they caste a moderatly evil character in a fun light.

anyway I can come up with more if you want, but that's a good start.

Personally, I've grown to love older SF with time though i started on fantasy...Heinlien, Norton, Van Vought, ect...

as an actual classic I love Catch 22.

[Preston]

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Sovereign Stone Trilogy. Three of the best books I've ever read.

[Jezrith]

I love Russian Literature. Anywhere from Chekov's and Babel's short stories; the Red Cavalry stories being my favorite.

"The Kamaroz Brothers", "Father and Son" and "War and Peace" are also good.

My favorite is "Notes From the Underground". The underground man is an idiot and genious, a hero and a coward all at the same time, thats just classic literature right there.

Also, got throw a plug in here for Imajica by Clive Barker. Its kind of fantasy, but not clasical fantasy, but its probably one of the best stories I have ever read.

[Sprite]

Oh yes, anything by David Gemmel rocks. As well as anything by David & Leigh Eddings.

[Prezimonto]

mischief, i have to disagree with all of The Edding's books are good.
Thier first series, the Belgariad is good, but the second series in that setting I thought was aweful...but because its bad, but becuase it was like they re-wrote the same long series out. I forget the name of their Church Knights series but the first series of those are wonderful, and the second, while at least readable, I thought didn't live up to the first series.

In short, I feel the Eddings come out of the box with great idea, characters and storylines, and then proceed to beat those ideas to death while capitalizing on the success of the original idea. Much like robert Jordan, they don't know when to quit or tie a story off. And yes many of you here will hate me for that statement, but Jordan has great idea that are spoiled by excess and his own inablility to edit his writing.

HA of all the dark fanatasy to miss commenting on in my first post.
Glen Cook's, The Black Company series is excellent, as several of the regulars around here will testify.

[Stark]

Dune by Frank Herbert is great. If you like that you might like The Prince of Nothing by R. Scott Bakker, which is fantasy.

I love the books by Terry Goodkind. The Wizards Rule series.
I think we're at book 9 or 10 now :P

http://members.aol.com/misuly/goodkind.htm

I really recommend it. Very good story.

No,
http://members.aol.com/misuly/martin.htm

[Dax]

Nefastus, if you like Fantasy and history books, how about trying an alternate history series set in a fantasy setting.

Harry Turtledove did a series that was a remake of WWII, but instead of tanks, subs, and planes; he's got bahemoths, leviathans, and dragons. There's also a great deal of magic involved. Its a 7 book series that i just call the Darkness series. You wont be dissapointed, believe me.

Also, my favorite Fantasy/Adventure auther would have to be Terry Brooks. I highly suggest anybody who's a fan of the genre to read the Shannara books.

[Stark]

Also, my favorite Fantasy/Adventure auther would have to be Terry Brooks. I highly suggest anybody who's a fan of the genre to read the Shannara books.

Why not just read Tolkien?

[Prezimonto]

aye.
that one reason I've grown fond of dark fantasy/ unusual stuff...
no or little connection to Tolkein...who wrote very good books, but has so many immitators

[Stark]

Have you read any China Mieville?

[Nefastus]

I'm very surprised that nobody listed H.P.Lovecraft. He's one of the best Horror/Dark Fiction authors I've ever crossed.

To add to that, I recently started to read Edgar Allan Poe's short stories. Mainly due to school requirements, but his works are pretty damn good.

[shock223]

i have begun to read anything that has dragons in it.

i have read:
earthsea
eragon
used to read harry potter bu i grew out of it
J.R.R's work (inclueding the hobbit)
C.S. lewus's work
the dragon rider's of pern
and the list goes on and on

[Malhavok]

Lately I've been reading mostly older sci-fi fantasty and literature. Currently going through and reading/re-reading Huxley, Bradbury, and Vonnegut. I'd have to say Bradbury is probably my favorite author at the moment. Very much looking to the next RR Martin (Song of Ice and Fire) and to a lesser extent Wheel of Time #11.

Just finished reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Very interesting look at humanity/society from the outside perspective of a 15 year old with Aspergers.

[shock223]

Very interesting look at humanity/society from the outside perspective of a 15 year old with Aspergers.

how weird.. because i am a 16 year old with aspergers

[RavenLord]

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Sovereign Stone Trilogy. Three of the best books I've ever read.
Good going Preston! ...those are some great books...I

[Spellmaker]

Im a huge Dragonlance fan and George R R Martin fan
Read all of David Gemells books <---- Favorite writer
All of Tracy hickman ( execpt 2 and 3 of Soviegn stone ones )
Robert Jordan
Teryy Goodkind
Marget Weis ( all )
C.S Friedman ( Black Sun Rising is a good book pealse read it )
R.A Salvator ( Deamon Wars and all the prequels to it like Highway man )
think that is it i got over 200+ books so i know im missing a auther or 2 in there o yeah NM cough* Harry Potter *cough

[Vicar]

Have you read any China Mieville?

OMG! Another one who has heard of Mieville! *Dances in joy*

Seriously, Mieville is the shit. Read Perdido Street Station, you won't be disappointed.

[Phineus]

R.R. Martin's song of Ice and Fire is super sexy
Dostoevsky's Notes from the underground is also fantastic
Orwell's `1894 is a classic and a must read for anyone
Huxley's Brave new world is also quite fantastic
Saldavores books are quire nice (book V of the spider queen just came out)
Dragonlance is also a rather nice series however its a bit of an easy read tbh

PS Goodkind is an _IDIOT_ "My books are a comment on the American struggle against communism blah blah blah

[Stark]

No, it's quite alright, Phineus, go on. Most people hate Goodkind.

[Teth]

Read Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. Not the sissy authorized abridged version, either - I mean all three books. Sehr gut. History and literature and a bit of insight into humanity all rolled into one delicious package of damning moral condemnation!

As for WW2...that depends on what you want to read. I've got a ton of books about warfare and WW2 in particular, but most of it is pretty specialized - primarily armoured warfare and/or the Eastern Front. Panzer Leader by Heinz Guderian is pretty much a mandatory read for a bit of insight into the German side of things, and for an overall analysis, The Great Crusade by...HP Willmott, I think (my copy is currently packed into a box, bah!) is fairly solid.

So clarify a bit, and I will give further suggestions! :D

I don't really bother with most fantasy/sci-fi novels anymore; if I'm reading fiction then it's probably either English/Russian literature or some stripe of mythology. That's just me, though!

[Saiith]

R.R. Martin's song of Ice and Fire is super sexy

This is the only good set of current "fantasy" novels. I read them a couple years ago but from what I remember they were great. Other than that I pretty much stick to non-fiction and classics...

[Stark]

Fantasy has a bad rep because of Tolkien clones and Eragon like books. But there are some good ones. Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake, A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, Prince of Nothing by R. Scott Bakker(the author is a philosophy professor in Canada), Malazan Book of the Fallen, and the Farseer Trilogy are all fantastic reads whether they be fantasy or not.

[Nightblighter]

robert jordans books.

david farlands runelords was pretty good.

hear very good things about song of ice and fire or whatever.

the dreamers series by david and leigh eddings, has some kinda corny jokes buts a pretty good, fast paced read.

hmm lets see, hunters blade trilogy, ra salvatore books in general.

dragonlance, first series, the twins ones, were good, the war of souls sucked ass, don't read them, just the season ones( dragonlance sweries i think) and the legends one, with the twins.

[Dax]

Why not just read Tolkien?

Cause i choose to read other things rather than read what everybody else wants to read. Personally, i dont care if its a "nock off". the story is good. i like the characters. and i enjoy the writing.

when it boils down to it, how much stuff out there is truely 100% orginal? I'm sure you could look at anything out there and say that it has elements of this book or that story or whatever.

[Nefastus]

Cause i choose to read other things rather than read what everybody else wants to read. Personally, i dont care if its a "nock off". the story is good. i like the characters. and i enjoy the writing.

when it boils down to it, how much stuff out there is truely 100% orginal? I'm sure you could look at anything out there and say that it has elements of this book or that story or whatever.

No offense, but that's just stupid. Tolkien is one of the most original writers, and one of the best fantasy ones too. Saying that you won't read "popular" books is just stupid. It's like saying that you won't eat this kind of food because everybody else likes it.

[Dax]

No offense, but that's just stupid. Tolkien is one of the most original writers, and one of the best fantasy ones too. Saying that you won't read "popular" books is just stupid. It's like saying that you won't eat this kind of food because everybody else likes it.
I'm glad you have the maturity level to respect another persons opinion.

I didnt intend to say that Tolkien wasnt original. I may have phrased my post a little poorly. My bad.

And I'd hardly take offense to anything anybody said on these boards... I have more important things to worry about then being offended by a member of a community forum.

[Nefastus]

I'm glad you have the maturity level to respect another persons opinion.

I didnt intend to say that Tolkien wasnt original. I may have phrased my post a little poorly. My bad.

And I'd hardly take offense to anything anybody said on these boards... I have more important things to worry about then being offended by a member of a community forum.

I guess you took me wrong way. I wasn't trying to be offensive. I was just commenting on what you said. It's unfortunate that you thought I was trying to be offensive.

I respect other's opinion and taste. I was mainly commenting on the fact that just because many people like certain thing doesn't mean it's automatically bad.

[Spellmaker]

I personally Hated LOTR . WHy im not really sure honestly cant jsut seem to get into it but i like Runelords that was pretty good kinda of different and so in Blacksun Rising that book was totaly differet and of course GOOTA LOVE George R R Martin , kills off main chasracters liek nothing so many twists and tunrs in that book you dont know what is happening ( GO JON SNOW ) Dragonlance is a good story if you foloow it all the why thru and I like the War of the souls series maybe only because i followed the whole series I had to know how it all ended and I love Tasselhoff nice comic relieve and he grew up thru the books and you can see the changes.
Robert Jordan is good but he DRAGS the story along so slow unlike George Martin or David Gemmell ( one story book lots of action good Plot lines)
Deamons Wars was good till book 4 i think but 5 was good but kinda left u hanging a bit ( Wondering the world fixing it WTF ) ATM im waitng on the new Sword of Truth book coming out next month and the new George Martin also coming out in 2 months plus Robert Jordan new book comes out also so it will be a good end of year and begining of a new one. Sorry so many Spellign errors it is late and i am tired

[Khahan]

Tolkien - no explaination needed
Weis/Hickman - You know Chronicles rocked!
Salvatore - Dark Elf trilogy is fantastic.
Cook/Denning/Lowder - The Empires Trilogy from which my name derives!
Brooks - Shannara series
Sun Tsu - Yeah, you heard me. The Art of War.

Lately though my reading has turned away from fantasy and I've been very interested in 16th century era Naval Warfare and Archipelago Piracy. Mmmm good times.

[Teth]

Tolkien's Silmarillion is the king of "this guy? Main character? DEAD! New guy? Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, stepping up to take up the reins? DEAD!". All other works are mere pretenders to the throne. D:

Incidentally, The Silmarillion is one of those works that people either adore or despise...it's events-driven rather than character-driven, and not everybody adjusts well to that. ^^;

Kinda amusing to note the 'power gap' between the characters of The Silmarillion and LOTR, though! When you consider that Gandalf had problems with a single balrog, but F

[Khahan]

That always bothered me about Gandalf. He was supposed to be this great wizard but he rides around on his horse with a sword drawn... Pfft Silly wizard.

[Amity]

bump

[losinglife]

That always bothered me about Gandalf. He was supposed to be this great wizard but he rides around on his horse with a sword drawn... Pfft Silly wizard.

thats why he was grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!

[Barbarossa]

Dark fantasy you say?


The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. A series of 6 books, and when you finsih those there is a whole `nother series of Amber books to read.

Someone needs to make a movie series based on these novels, they just pwn face.

[losinglife]

hahaah shit, i didnt even see this was from 05...... nice necro!

[Barbarossa]

hahaah shit, i didnt even see this was from 05...... nice necro!

Whoops.

I didn't notice it either.

[Aragoni]

H.P. Lovecraft, Jonathan Green, Adam Smith (read parts of his book Wealth Of Nations), Ron Paul, Max Brooks, Robert Jordan, J.R.R. Tolkien, David Eddings, Stephen King, Friedrich Nietzsche, Tobias Landström, Andreas Roman and a few more. :)

if you want fantasy books I recommend nearly all books about the Warhammer (40k) universe (Gotrek and Felix novels, Necromancer, The Dead And The Damned etcetera)

Edit: WTF?! NECRO!

[Voodoo Hoodoo]

Robert Jordan. Watching his characters develop was awe inspiring.

Shame he died last year. I'll never know his vision for book 12 and the Tarmon Gai'don.

RIP RJ.

[Arolas]

The only fantasy books I've ever read are The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, which were sublime, and a few of the Dragonlance books, which were very poorly written. 'His Dark Materials' probably goes under fantasy though, right? That was a wonderful trilogy, I thought. Someone lent me Robert Jordan recently, but I haven't started reading yet; I heard he's good.

At the moment I'm reading 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' by Haruki Murakami. He's probably one of my favourite authors.

[Arolas]

H.P. Lovecraft, Jonathan Green, Adam Smith (read parts of his book Wealth Of Nations), Ron Paul, Max Brooks, Robert Jordan, J.R.R. Tolkien, David Eddings, Stephen King, Friedrich Nietzsche, Tobias Landström, Andreas Roman and a few more. :)

if you want fantasy books I recommend nearly all books about the Warhammer (40k) universe (Gotrek and Felix novels, Necromancer, The Dead And The Damned etcetera)

Edit: WTF?! NECRO!

Nietzsche is typically the brainfood of angsty teenagers (they empathise with his misunderstood nature), but I have to agree with you, I like his work, too. If you're into Nietzsche, check out a book called 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' by Milan Kundera. It explores in depth the theme of eternal recurrence and is generally a great read, if a little too misogynistic.