Good, Deep, Fantasy/Sci-Fi Series (for Older Readers)

[AceLuby]

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Dan Simmons has been mentioned, but not "Hyperion" or the three sequels. I remember liking all of them, but it could be because I don't go to church.

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I thought Hyperion was good, if not strange. The sequel/2nd half was slightly worse and I couldn't tolerate the next one.

Terry Goodkind's first book was [censored] horrible nad hackish and had a weird chapter long S&M bit that was staggeringly out of place. Just trash.

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OK, this is my favorite series. The first one is good and the 2nd takes off from that. The 3rd and 4th books go together in the same way, but aren't really sequels. But by not reading them you really missed out on how well everything goes together. It was obvious by the end of the last book that he knew the entire story before even writing the first book.

I can't suggest these books enough. Very good, very deep in politics, religion & literature and by the end really gets you thinking. Epic and great and I have to say that if you read one and don't read them all you are missing out on a lot of the story.

This thread has inspired me to read these again.

[govman6767]

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Dark Tower Series by Steven King might be the best book series I've ever read.

Book 1 would be the worst of the series and a turn off to some but mark my words this is the best book series of all time.

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Seriously? I stopped after book no 1. Might want to carry on after all?

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Book one was the worst of them all and has very little to do with the whole story on a whole.

This series incorporates a lot of his other books.

With Character appearances from his other books.

The stand, The Vampire book, and a lot of his other stories.

Book one starts off like some western but it's sci fi, fantasy, action and horror all rolled into one.

You have guns, lasers, lightsabers (yes for real) Snitches (HP [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]).

Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies,

The series revolves around 4 heros not just the gunslinger from book one.

That's the biggest problem with the book is that after reading book 1 most people lose intrest. But it has very little to do with the whole series and trust me you will find it SOOOO amazing just give it a chance.

[Georgia Avenue]

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Gene Wolfe, The Book of the New Sun - Amazon Link to the first two books.

Smart, nuanced literary science fiction/fantasy, definitely geared towards adults. It's a first-person narrative of an apprentice torturer exiled for showing mercy to a "client;" the torturer eventually becomes the sole ruler of a far-future Earth whose sun is dying. (No spoiler; the fact of his future rule is announced early in the first book.)

The writing is a little stiff and self-conscious (it's supposedly translated from a future language into present-day English, and Wolfe uses outdated words to show the difficulties in translation), and the first-person narration is often unreliable and frequently assumes knowledge the reader doesn't have.

So in some ways it's a demanding read; but on balance, it's worth it.

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I came into this thread to post this. Gene Wolfe is my favorite author, and arguably the best sci-fi writer of all time. Seriously everyone needs to read these books.

Start with the Fifth Head of Cerebus, then skip to the Long Sun books, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_Long_Sun) then go back and read the first series, the book of the new sun.

Stop reading oot and go to the library, NOW
--GA

[adsman]

My brother came out to see me this summer and brought me a science fiction and a fantasy book. He walked into a sci-fi/fantasy bookshop in Perth and asked them to give him two books that weren't full of clichès.

The fantasy book I mentioned in the other thread, Jonathon Strange & Mr Norrell, about two English magicians in the time of the Napoleonic wars. Very original.

The sci-fiwas Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan which I liked a lot. It introduced a cool concept to the genre which I found very interesting.

[jalexand42]

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Surprised not to see Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series up here. The first few books were pretty good, especially if you like Jordan. Then in the middle of the series it gets REALLY preachy and moralizing and long and bad. The final book comes out in a month or two, supposedly it is much more like the early books than the middle ones. Its not the greatest writing ever, but perhaps less teenaged and more what OP is looking for.

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QFT.

[jalexand42]

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I am surprised no one has mentioned Tigana yet, by Guy Gavriel Kay. Really nice book. Most of his work is very readable but this was his opus for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Gavriel_Kay

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QFT. This is an excellent book, seriously the premise of this book is great.

[Jamougha]

Also, the Scottish school; Iain M. Banks and Ken McLeod, though more their earlier work.

[Bostaevski]

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re: Terry Goodkind...

I read his first five books, only because I hadn't heard of Robert Jordan first. I then switched to Jordan's books, which were written years prior, and found way too many striking similarities (read: Goodkind ripped off Jordan huge, just huge). It's pretty gross when you sit down and start examining the parallels in both series.

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Seemed to me it was a good rip from the arthurian stuff where you have this simple well-intentioned hero guy named Richard/Arthur/Luke Skywalker who finds out his father is a powerful yet evil ruler named Darken Rahl/Uther Pendragon/Darth Vader. He has a mentor though, a powerful wizard named Zed/Merlin/Obiwan. He also has the most kick-ass sword known to man called The Sword of Truth/Excalibur/Light Saber.

[ChipWrecked]

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Dan Simmons has been mentioned, but not "Hyperion" or the three sequels. I remember liking all of them, but it could be because I don't go to church.

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I thought Hyperion was good, if not strange. The sequel/2nd half was slightly worse and I couldn't tolerate the next one.

Terry Goodkind's first book was [censored] horrible nad hackish and had a weird chapter long S&M bit that was staggeringly out of place. Just trash.

[/ QUOTE ]

OK, this is my favorite series. The first one is good and the 2nd takes off from that. The 3rd and 4th books go together in the same way, but aren't really sequels. But by not reading them you really missed out on how well everything goes together. It was obvious by the end of the last book that he knew the entire story before even writing the first book.

I can't suggest these books enough. Very good, very deep in politics, religion & literature and by the end really gets you thinking. Epic and great and I have to say that if you read one and don't read them all you are missing out on a lot of the story.

This thread has inspired me to read these again.

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The third book imo amounted to a very long chase scene, but it was worth it to get to the last one.

[jalexand42]

One author that I did not see mentioned that is one of my favorites is Janny Wurts.

Her Wars of Light & Shadow series is my favorite fantasy series, up there with Tolkien, Feist, etc.

Also, her collaboration with Feist on the Empire series (Daughter, Servant, Mistress) is freaking great, with lots of fantastic political intrigue.