Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

Let's hear the opinions.

1. Malazan - The most original and utterly complete world ever.

2. Manifest Delusions - There is literally nothing else like this.

3. Broken Earth - The blend of so many themes so flawlessly. Totally unique.

1) Cosmere - most original and complete magic system I've ever read
2) Kushiel's Legacy - Best use of twisted religion I've seen
3) Redwall - I have never wanted to live in any book world as much as I want to live in this one

*I edited my comment to change out #3 and to add detail

Top three worlds

1) The Temeraire series - the mixture of history and fantasy was brilliant.

2) The Broken Empire trilogy - well the beauty behind the world building is revealed in the reading.

3) The Faithful and the Fallen - I have only read two of the books so far but I really love the world.


Honourable mention for The Wheel of Time series as well.

Agree totally with Malazan (from what little I've read) and Broken Earth (MD Pending... :)).

In no particular order:
>Draconius Memoria - I often tie together "world building" and "setting" when I think about it. DM had a beautiful combination of both.
>Stormlight Archives - I love how many drop in details he adds to enhance the world-building experience.
>Anything by Julie E. Czerneda - scifi world-building at it's finest. I'm a sucker for excellent creature creation.
>Anything by Glenda Larke

Recent great WB reads:
Promise of Blood
An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors

There are awesome worlds among those already mentioned that would make it onto my list (Malazan, Broken Earth, Kushiel) so I wanted to bring up new ones:

Number one is obvious: Middle Earth (obviously, a template for the genre but the immense depth of this universe goes beyond the obvious)

Number two is less known but I am very impressed with it: Inda-verse. It took Sherwood Smith 20 years to polish all the details and you can feel it when reading this series. The worldbuilding is nuanced, far from cliches and incredibly imaginable.

Number three: Locke-Lamora verse. I saw the whole worlds written with less panache than one of those cities Locke Lamora visited.

1. Middle Earth - Tolkien even went so far as to construct grammar rules for his languages

2. Malazan

3. The Cosmere

1. and 2. Middle-Earth and Malazan. I can't decide which one I like more. No other fictional worlds I've read so far felt that real and managed to fascinate me as much as these two!

3. Westeros/Essos - I wouldn't count Asoiaf as one of my absolute favorite series but I think the world is amazing!

1. Malazan - there really is nothing on the same scale as this series.

2. Manifest Delusions - I still don't know what to make of this series. All I know is the world is so cool and so unique.

3. Westeros - The story is based on so much previous history in the world that blends the past and present of the world so naturally.

Like a many others I would say Malazan, Inda and Kushiel. So going to talk about three others.

1. Wheel of Time - Jordan is so descriptive of his world that I felt like I could actually see each place the characters visited. There was also so many myths that I felt really helped flesh out the world.

2. Crobuzon(Perdido Street Station) - the city was so lovingly described down to every little detail. Unfortunately for me every thing else suffered because of it but he did get that aspect right.

3. Eternal Sky - another where the overall package wasn’t great but the worldbuilding was. This series had some really unique elements that I hadn’t seen before. It kept me interested even when the plot was boring.

Middle Earth
Wheel of Time
Not sure about the third one.

OK, I forgot: Anathem. The worldbuilding accounts for millennia, several ends of the world and is so sophisticated that frankly the majority of readers feels lost in the initial chapters. But then, things click on and it becomes pure awesomeness.

1. Malazan - I've read only the first books (still need to catch up on the series) but that is the most complex and imaginative world I have ever read about. - and now I wonder how I'll be praising this after I'm through the entire series.

2. The Wars of Light and Shadow - the most complex and soundly structured magic system

3. The Wheel of Time - solidly built universe - seemed so real and fleshed out. - Bill already said that though, so it looks like I'm piggybacking. :D

If I could add in one, I'd say Kushiel for the religion