Looking For A Good Series Of Books To Read.

Books I've read since I quit FFXI/FFXIV include:

The Shannara series by Terry Brooks.

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

The Harry Potter series bt J.K. Rowling.

In the past I have also read:

The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.


Looking to get opinions from other fantasy nuts about what other good fantasy books are out there I can read through.

I started reading the Light Novel series Overlord after watching the anime adaptation a few months back. It's similar to Re:Zero and Sword Art Online where the MC gets trapped in a virtual world, but cliches aside it's a pretty good series to read. I'd also recommend watching the anime, but they miss out a lot in comparison to the novels. Still, they are some epic fight scenes (especially the last 2 episodes) :)

The Witcher series (upon which the games are based) by Andrzej Sapkowski

The Harry Dresden novels by Jim Butcher

The Riftwar Saga by Raymond Feist (and I guess the Serpentwar Saga too, but I have mixed feelings about the latter)

The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind

I especially recommend the Dresden books. I absolutely love them.

The Anita Blake vampire hunter series by Laurel K Hamilton ~

Set in a present day parallel universe about a necromancer/vampire hunter. I quite enjoyed reading it. /shrug

Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. It's a slightly different take on traditional high fantasy. No elves or dwarfs or average mythical creatures. Think Roman Legion evolved in a strange world.

By extension, you can read Jim Butcher main series: The Dresden Files. It's urban fantasy similar to Harry Potter but less mythical and teens and more about hard-boiled noir detective and urban life. It's more suitable for mature readers.

These look like some great responses, thank you! I'll definitely check them out. If anyone else thinks of any others, don't be afraid to post. I'm apparently a fast reader according to friends.

Edit: Sorry. I've got a bit of a grudge that's difficult to explain or even justify sometimes, but it's there nevertheless.

If you want something a bit more "realistic," Wilbur Smith's Courtney novels are outstanding. They're historical fiction (1700s to mid 1900s) centered around England and Southern Africa (more the latter as time goes on) with strong nautical themes (also, lots of sex and violence). Not to be confused with his Egyptian novels, which are a bit more fantastical.

I haven't read any series by new authors, so these may be a little dated, but I really enjoyed these growing up:

-The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind is pretty good, a world split into magical and non magical halves and someone who learns to deal with both. The author likes to point out ethical ambiguities in his characters lot, though

-the Adept series by Piers Anthony is similarly about a man trapped between a sci-Fi world and a fantasy one. This author is a lot of fun, who writes very interesting characters. If you really want to read him at his goofiest, you can check out his pun-filled fantasy Xanth series. His Adventures of Kelvin of Rud series is also a mix of Sci-fi/fantasy. Incarnations of Immortality series is a bit more serious; showing us the real lives of people forced to become gods (if you've ever read Neil Gaiman's Sandman series it's kind of like that, minus Gaiman's amazing art). As you can tell, I read this author a lot.

-Terry Pratchett's diskworld series is also comical fantasy. Another really good author with really fun characters.

-George RR. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series (upon which the Game of thrones tv series is based) is obviously good.

-the Deathgate Cycle by Margaret Weis/Tracy Hickman. Classic dungeons&dragons type fantasy. These authors are fairly well known in the fantasy genre

-Elizabeth Hayden's Symphony of Ages is pretty good. Her fantasy world is pretty fleshed out, with very detailed characters and races.

I realized after writing this summary that you might want to check out some of the anthology series out there to get a taste for different fantasy authors' writing. There was an anthology series called Thieves World awhile back that had 8 or so books where each book had a collection of chapters each written by different well known fantasy authors, all based on any one of a common list of characters living in this rugged port of smugglers filled with all sorts of forbidden magic and demonic creatures. Another anthology worth checking out are the two books titled Legends. That one is slightly more recent and had more of the above authors listed in it, and includes new stories based on their most popular series. Check those out, and see which authors/characters interest you, then go from there.

Edit: had to add the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series by Tad Williams. This is pure epic fantasy. Maybe the closest thing I've found to Tolkien. Really amazing author, very fleshed out world, characters, and races. A very riveting quest and lots of plot twists. And if you like cats, his Tailchaser's Song is basically LotR with cats as the main characters. :)

**Edited again due to hunger, thanks to other posters for noticing.

If you can get passed the first book, the series really takes a ride down your imagination. A great series. One that I have yet to complete. I picked it back up starting at the beginning and will see it through

iain m banks books in the culture series (and if you like them, there's the iain banks books too, tho they're not sci-fi/fantasy)

I really enjoyed the Sword of Truth series as well, though I knew someone who couldn't stand it because of some minor objectivist elements. caveat emptor.

+11111111

Roger Zelazny's Amber series.

2 sets, 10 slim books in all.

Corwin series

1970 Nine Princes in Amber
1972 The Guns of Avalon
1975 Sign of the Unicorn
1976 The Hand of Oberon
1978 The Courts of Chaos

Merlin series

1985 Trumps of Doom – Locus Fantasy Award winner, 1986[12]
1986 Blood of Amber – Locus Fantasy Award nominee, 1987[13]
1987 Sign of Chaos – Locus Fantasy Award nominee, 1988[14]
1989 Knight of Shadows
1991 Prince of Chaos

Based on what you listed you might like the Legend of Drizzt Saga by R.A. Salvator, the first book (chronologically) is called Homeland.

A couple other authors to check out could be Steven Erikson and Ian C. Esslemont, the two of them share a world to write in that's amazingly well built imo... They only thing some of their books are decidedly on the graphic side (Erikson more so than Esslemont) so it's not for everyone. Their first books were Gardens of the Moon and Night of Knives respectively so those would be good starting points.

You mean George RR Martin's Chronicles of Ice and Fire? o_O

He also said that the Sword of Truth series is by Robert Goodkind instead of Terry Goodkind. I think he just has Roberts on the brain.

Name of the Wind, Wise Man's Fear- Patrick Rothfuss. Probably the best fantasy written in the last 30 years.

Lightbringer series - Brent Weeks for something light and fun, but very engaging.

The Warded Man series- Peter V Brett. This is my favorite for some reason.

Vashkoda mentioned Piers Anthony's Adept series. Nice. Also try his Incarnations of Immortality series. Eventually you'll root for the devil to defeat God with this one.

Robin Hobb's Farseer/Fitz and the Fool series beginning with Assassin's Apprentice. You will laugh, you will cry, you will be pissed off often. Hobbs is a master of creating emotional bonds with her characters.

I second (third?) The Dark Tower series.

Also, The Stand, by Stephen King as well. It's like a post-apocalyptic horror/fantasy akin to The Lord of the Rings, but set in America.

If you like vampires that don't sparkle in sunlight check out Anno Dracula.

I read the first book, fell in love and got them all for my birthday.

The gist is that it takes place in an alternate timeline where Val Helsing failed to kill Dracula. Dracula then marries Queen Victoria and vampires become a much larger part of the population.

First book revolves around Jack the Ripper and the detectives trying to catch him. Lots of alternate timeline stuff and references to both fictional and non-fictional persons.

Anything by R.A. Salvator is pretty boss. He writes about a drop elf and his companions adventuring. There's maybe 20~ books or so.

Also, Weis and Hickman write a series similar that revolves around dragons and their disappearances from the world. There's hundreds of books in that world.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/49134-the-legend-of-drizzt Salvator.

http://www.fictiondb.com/author/margaret-weis-tracy-hickman~38408.htm Dragon Lance books.

I didn't pay a lot of attention in high school thanks to wheel of time, Mr salvatore, wies and Hickman. Etc etc.

I always loved anything by Anne McCaffery but particularly her Dragonriders of Pern (P-E-R-N, lol) series. Anything til All The Weyrs of Pern is great writing. After that her son and publisher starts making a mess of things.

A group in our future heads off to colonize a distant planet. While they still have technology, and leading minds in the technology, the intent, if I recall correctly, to abandon most of it for simpler life.

Things are good and great until they discover the natural cycle of the planet exposes it to a carniverous silvery organism, falling from space as orbits intersect, that they call Thread. Eats everything but metal and stone.

On the planet exist "fire lizards", miniature fire-breathing dragons, and so they use their best and brightest minds to bio-engineer full sized dragons.

The firelizards possess the power to telepathically project emotions and images. The dragons form a lifelong bond and telepathically communicate with their riders. They also possess to the ability to go 'between' to traverse great distances in an instant.

As time goes on, the world regresses into a medieval state and stabilizes. Lords oversee their own autonomous states and the Dragonriders live in their own autonomous colonies. The world tithes food and supplies to dragonriders so that they can continue doing their job adequately.

It genuinely is a very rich world that I've always loved. If you've ever read anything by Robert Heinlein, you'll see that Mrs. McCaffery takes a lot of inspiration from Heinlein.

The dune is really good if your into SCI FI

George R.R. Martin's Wild Card series is good. It's also about to become a T.V. series.

David Gemmell's Drenai series is also worth reading.

Is Wild Card finished? Dude's already sucker-punched us once. Takes a sick individual to go back for seconds.

To be fair I was typing all that on my phone during a snack break, so I blame it on the hunger *insert random Snickers commercial*

Also I'm a "she". :p

Read the Redwall series

Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson is very good.

Probably one of the most interesting magic systems I've seen.