Another vote for Joe Abercrombie here, the First Law trilogy. Especially as you said you wanted something a bit darker. You need to meet The Bloody Nine...
Yeah it's been a long time but they remain one of my favorites. I was hooked from the first word. The local bookseller, (there was no Barnes and Noble back then and we didn't have a B. Dalton's yet), took my number and promised to call me when ever the next volume came out after he grew tired o my weekly pestering him. I don't think I've read anything like it before or since. I have them on my shelf and, like I do with LOTR, "The Count Of Monte Cristo" and "The Stand", drag them out every couple of years and read through them.
Some of these have already been mentioned in this thread. Shanarra series by Terry Brooks. I would start with The Sword of Shanarra, as it was the first book published, even though, later on, there were prequel books. https://www.goodreads.com/series/99160-shannara---terry-s-suggested-order-for-new-readers The Elric saga by Michael Moorcock. You can find these published in omnibus editions. I believe I have all of them in three hardback volumes. https://www.goodreads.com/series/117866-elric-chronological-order I agree with a previous poster that many of the D&D novels are "young adult fiction", but the Drizzit series by Salvatore is more gritty and better written than 99% of the rest. There are a lot of them also. https://www.goodreads.com/series/49134-the-legend-of-drizzt The original Robert E. Howard Conan stories are wonderful, IMO. They can currently be found collected in omnibus style volumes. https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Conan...TF8&qid=1494331561&sr=8-1&keywords=conan book There were a lot of pastiche Conan stories written by other authors. I recommend you skip those and stick to Robert Howard. On a more recent note, I just started the Malazon series and finished the first book, Gardens of the Moon. It's quite good. http://malazan.wikia.com/wiki/Suggested_reading_order
While i love this book, i have talked with a few people who thought Brooks was all over the place - his writing was a little sloppy and kind of all over the place, like he was working through his writing identity in this book, which he found! If anyone falls into this category, it's worth reading in spite of the sloppy writing because it's a good story and the follow-up, Elfstones of Shannara, is insanely good (please do not judge this series based upon that horrible MTV show) so don't give up on Mr. Brooks' books.
Oh, and I forgot to mention Tim Powers, who is probably my favorite author right now. Though more sci-fi than fantasy, his books involve weird mystical stuff (like a sub-culture of people that get high inhaling ghosts) and explanations for the mystical things that might exist it between the stories in our history books (like how Shelly was a favored person with ancient gargoyles/vampires that inspired his poetry and eventually lead to his death). A
Jack Whyte has a few good series. It's mostly historical fiction. For example A Dream of Eagles deals with Camelot and Merlin and Arthur yet in a non-magical and historically logical way.
For a slightly different perspective on the Fantasy Genre, I'd like to throw the late Terry Pratchett's (impressive) hat into the ring. I'm pretty sure they are available in the US (he was British). My personal favourite was the books about the Night Watch (Guards! Guards! was one), and anything with Death in it (which was everything ).
seeing as no one has mentioned his name - david gemmell - by far my absolute favourite author. not exactly high fantasy. you wont find any elves or dwarves or goblins. you will find assasins, barbarians, shamans and spirit walking priests. brilliant author. start with legend, and youll be hooked. I promise you.
As a necromancer, I hereby decree this thread summoned back from the dead. I have recently been delving back into the Ringworld series by Larry Niven. I had never read Ringworld's Children (only the three before it), so it was nice to finally read that novel. I just started on Fleet of Worlds now, which is brand new (to me). I have never read any of the "XYZ of Worlds" novels (just the Ringworld ones), and I'm having a great time in these stories. So yeah, Larry Niven... read his stuff. If you want some smaller reads to test Niven... you could always opt for the Integral Trees / Smoke Ring novels. While not technically part of the Known Space novels, they actually DO occur in Known Space (I think(?))... Anyways, it's been two years, so it seems like a good time to revive this thread. We can all read a book or two while you await the new expansion. PS: There have been enough other mentions of SciFi books with the comment "not technically Fantasy," so I think we can all consider this thread to now be derailed from Fantasy only to the more inclusive SciFi / Fantasy titles.
I was a huge fan of the Wheel of Time series, Landover series and Shannara sets of series (Jordan and Brooks are some of my favorites). I enjoyed but did not see listed here was Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series. As for Tolkein, I was fine with the Hobbit and LotR, but the Silmarillion was the bane of my reading existence.
Terry Goodkind Sword of truth series Wizards first rule is the 1st book. Faith of the Fallen was the best book in the series.
Agree with Varamek, the Iron Druid series is quite entertaining - especially if you try the audible version narrated by Luke Daniels. He's an award winning narrator and voices characters in a highly skillful way that will certainly make you smile if not LOL.
Wow this thread is like the who's who of my highschool/early college years reading life. I worked during that time in a sci-fi/fantasy gaming store that also served as the local used book store. I don't have much to add other than the agree with what's already been posted. I'd probably start my recommendations in potential order of masochism. Terry Brooks - Shannara David & Leigh Eddings - Belgariad and Mallorean Terry Goodkind - Sword of Truth (be warned there are quite a few more "adult" themes in these books than any other on the list) Elizabeth Haydon - Symphony of Ages Robert Jordan / Branden Sanderson - Wheel of Time
While I am not a reader of science fiction I thoroughly enjoyed the following series, somewhat related, perhaps. The following books by Jean M. Auel are collectively called "Earth's Children". The Clan of the Cave Bear 1980 The Valley of Horses 1982 The Mammoth Hunters 1985 The Plains of Passage 1990 The Shelters of Stone 2002 The Land of Painted Caves 2011 These are the stories of Ayla and later Jondalar making their way in a world 30000 years ago.
Many great suggestions made here. But im really surprised no one has brought up Raymond E Feist. He wrote at least 20 books for his universe. Truly fantastic stuff. Start off with Magician : Apprentice
So true, by a large margin. Couple others that i have picked up since: James Islingtin: Licanius trilogy, hits all the tropes but found that the story was good enough that i didn't care Margaret Weis: Star of the Guardians (should say i found this again)
Richard K. Morgans Takeshi Kovacs novels, starts with Altered Carbon(which is now a Netflix series) is a great Scifi/Cyberpunk. His fantasy series; A Land Fit for Heroes is great too, but the gay sex scenes will likely put off a lot of people. Starts with The Steel Remains. Anne McCaffrey is to this day one of my favorite authors! Her Dragonriders of Pern series, The Crystal Singer books, The Brain/Brawn books, Her books about The Talented, The Freedom books. The Unincorporated Man is the first in a quartet of scifi books thats quite innovative(too lazy to look up the authors names). Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief is another good series starter for scifi. David Weber has the Honor Harrington Books, and the Safe Hold series. Elizabeth Moon has both scifi and fantasy series The Deeds of Paksennarion(sp?) Vattas War. Anything by Neal Stephenson ie Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Anathem, Reamde. The Culture novels by Ian M. Banks. L.E. Modessit Jr has the Saga of Recluse and The Imager Portfolio.
