SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Some people have said that after book 5 of 6 (accounts vary) the Wheel of time gets poor. A friend who has them all says that it picks up towards the end of the series again.
I've not read them, merely reporting.

Yeah, what Jim said. I hit the WOT wall at book seven. The first five of books were great. Like a lot of other readers I got bored with the story by book seven.

start with Magician

I love Robin Hobb's books. The Farseer trilogy is the place to start; the first book is called Assassin's Apprentice. It's one of my all-time favorite fantasy series.

Like you, I do really like the Game of Thrones books, so perhaps Hobb will suit you as well.

For gritty fantasy, try Joe Abercrombie.

For not-so-gritty, try Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series (first book is The Dragonbone Chair).

Kate Elliott's fantasy often seems grounded in history in a similar way to Martin's Wars-of-the-Roses vibe. The Crown of Stars books have a medieval Europe feel; I very much enjoyed these, but they're very dense, and at time I thought the set-ups were more interesting than the pay-offs. The Crossroads trilogy, starting with Spirit's Gate, is more manageable in terms of length and has an Asian feel to its settings.

And it occurs to me that Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince series has a lot of the conniving-nobles element to it.

I really enjoy Robin Hobb's work; the Farseer trilogy is definitely my favorite; sometimes, I find the pacing in her other books to be a bit too slow, so I have to read them when I'm in a patient mood!

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

Kevin wrote: "Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson"

Erikson's Malazan books blow away anything else I've read in terms of the scope.

It's a much tougher read than Song of Ice and Fire, but I think the payoff is worth it. They won't be for everyone.

If you do try it, you may want to refer to our Malazan Fallen group. There are detailed chapter discussions for the first 4 books in the series, with new chapters being added every week.

We'll be starting book 5: Midnight Tides next week.

You might like books written by David Eddings. The Belgariad series and The Mallorean were a good romp. Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry makes good reading as does The Gormenghast Trilogy (especially if you like Game of Thrones).
Happy reading

Joe Abercrombie's First Law series, beginning with The Blade Itself. Best characterization since Martin.

Also Brent Weeks, the Night Angel Trilogy.

One of my favorites: Naomi Novik, His Majesty's Dragon and the whole Temeraire series. This one is alternate history of the Napoleonic War so it is not the more traditional fantasy style of Martin, Abercrombie and Weeks.

Could someone please take a look at my writings on here and comment on them, what you think of them ? Thanks in advance

I also think The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End by Ken Follett would work, even though they are historical fiction rather than epic fantasy.

Jeremy wrote: "Hi all! I am relatively new to the fantasy genre, but I have been enthralled in the Game of Thrones series. I am only on the 3rd book right now but I'm moving pretty fast. Does anyone have sugg..."

I would recommend the Deryni series by Katherine Kurtz. Everything GRRM is doing with Game of Thrones/ASoIaF, Kurtz did better 30-40 years with the Deryni.

I would also recommend The Iron King, even though the book was originally published in French, Martin stated that this was one of the inspirations behind Song of Ice and Fire.

I've found Daniel Abraham's Dagger and the Coin series to be most like Game of Thrones, but a little easier to read. I've really enjoyed it so far. The Dragon's Path is fantastic!

OK, I'm going to have to shamelessly pimp something I did a few years ago: a poll of books on the westeros.org forums.

The idea was to create a general reading list for the genre, but of course since it was done on a Martin fan-forum it sort of presupposes that you like Martin. So if you're saying you liked Martin, it may be a good way to say what other people who liked Martin also liked.

So to start with, here's the actual list I came up with [and here's the big picture explaining how I created the list, why I made it that way, and what the downsides of making it that way were. It's iirc 101 20th century genre books/series, plus a couple of honourable mentions, plus 10 21st century works, plus honourable mentions there as well. And the bolding works won the poll-within-a-poll for the things people thought were truly great.]

However, that polling system was designed to create a wide and varied reading list that aimed at giving everyone something they loved, rather than a list where everyone loved everything on it.

So, you may also be interested in the results of the raw vote aggregation by author. Now, the poll was structured to allow people to order their choices into three tiers, so the result depend on how you weight those tiers. So here are two lists of authors that Martin fans like most - the first list is weighted to favour authors people like more, and the second list is weighted to favour authors more people like.

First list (so more about devoted fans):
Tolkien - Martin - Wolfe - Bakker - Herbert
Mieville - Simmons - Kay - Orwell - Card
Donaldson - D. Adams - Erikson - Abercrombie - Le Guin
Gaiman - Vance - Zelazny - Hobb - R. Adams

Second list (so more about broad appeal):
Tolkien - Martin - Mieville - Wolfe - Bakker
Herbert - Abercrombie - Kay - Gaiman - Hobb
Pratchett - King - Card - Erikson - Morgan
Zelazny - Le Guin - Simmons - D. Adams - Vance

As you can see, there are some differences - Simmons, Card and Le Guin, for instance, seem to be more divisive, with fewer fans but those fans rating them higher, while, eg, Abercrombie, King, and Hobb seem more universal, with a higher percentage of voters naming them, even if fewer named them as absolute favourites.

Traves wrote: "Yeah, what Jim said. I hit the WOT wall at book seven. The first five of books were great. Like a lot of other readers I got bored with the story by book seven."

Yeah I had the same problem with the WOT books, however a few years later I gave it another chance and plowed thro the boring Aes sedai politic books that made me very sleepy rofl. And finished the series, and I can say it was worth it, its the most epic fantasy ever, its been a big part of my life for over 15 years and got me into fantasy in the first place. The ending is the best fiction I ever read wow, tons better then I could ever have imagined.

You may also want to try The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series by Greg Keyes. It starts with The Briar King and is a 4-part series. Granted the first book is a little tough to get through and doesn't truly pick up into about the last 3rd of it. However, once it picks up, it never stops until the entire series is over. A very underrated series.

Kay wrote: "Joe Abercrombie's First Law series, beginning with The Blade Itself. Best characterization since Martin."

If what you love about GRRM is the grittiness and morally grey characters, then yes. If what you love about GRRM is the grand scope and intricate, complex world-building, you might be slightly disappointed. Great series in any case, just doesn't stack up well against GRRM in that second category IMO.

Try The Steel Remains

I don't think I would recommend Joe Abercrombie's First Law series for Game of Thrones Fan because the concepts are completely different. Like Andy said, First Law doesn't have that world-building appeal.

But also, the biggest difference is that Abercrombie writes an anti-hero as a protagonist. While I consider GRRM to write morally grey characters, I think First Law ends up being a lot darker than gray. That's part of the appeal of his books, but it's not exactly similar to Game of Thrones.

I'd probably recommend Robin Hobb's Farseer series Assassin's Apprentice like some people have above or Sherwood Smith's Inda series as something more similar Inda.

Andy wrote: "Kay wrote: "Joe Abercrombie's First Law series, beginning with The Blade Itself. Best characterization since Martin."

If what you love about GRRM is the grittiness and morally grey characters, the..."

I take your point about the somewhat derivative world building in GRRM's series. But most epic fantasy doesn't attempt to be unique in that arena, don't you agree? (I would Love to see more fantasy books do so, however.) And GRRM went for "knights" theme, which is at the heart of his milieu, and which I think he carries off with great depth (if not originality.)