Fantasy and Sci-Fi Novels • Page 2 • Collecting General

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Fantasy and Sci-Fi Novels
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Johnson
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 4:43 pm

Hi

Mrs Malcolm is somewhat into this genre, and reckons that the best thing shes read in the last 20 years are the Game of Thrones books by George RR Martin.

Cheers,
Malcolm

Traveller
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:58 pm

Marlith wrote:Speaking of hard to find favorites...as well as more than their share of sex and violence...John Normans Gor series.

The first ten as well as book 26 are available though World of Gor - Home .

There was a long discussion on Collecting General regarding the Gor series. It's a favorite of mine, but I'm also biased as I happen to roleplay online on that world. If you can get past the excruciating writing, there is much to recommend.

The Gray Book: My homage to E.G.G.

Star Trek: Alpha Quadrant: The game Mongoose failed to make.

killjoy32
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Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 11:00 am

my fave books are and always will be:

"Saga of Lost Earths" - Emil Petaja

and

"Glory Road" - Robert Heinlein

i have originals of both from the 60's and the stories still rock! i must have read them both at least 200 times by now. they are reasonably thin books too, so you can get through them in one go....well i do anyway :)

imo its storytelling at its best, which fires your imagination to its fullest....great stuff! :)

Are we nearly there yet?

RiderFantasy
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 7:55 pm

Anything by Allen Steele.

His "Coyote" deep space series is as "Heinlein" as those books by The Master.

Long ago and far away, I published books...

Charles G.
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:00 am

All right - LOTR is assumed

I'll put in Silmarillion and (I expect) the to be released tomorrow Children of Hurin by Tolkien. Amazing how much this guy has written since he died in 1973... 8O

Next would be George R.R. Martin's "Ice and Fire" series - great stuff but I have to agree that he is a little too eager to drop the hammer on characters that I like... but overall its very well written...

...UNLIKE Robert Jordan and his abyssmal "Wheel of Time" - yes, it is a pretty good overall story, but Jordan is a caaaraaaaappppy storyteller. He DESPERATELY needs an editor to trim about 1/3 to 1/2 of the useless drivel that he randomly spews out of his wordprocessor to make them readable. I find myself skimming whole chapters in a desparate (and, usually, vain) effort to get anywhere near a point... Didn't like his Conan books either.

Robert Adams' "Horseclans" series is excellent, though the plots tend towards predictability.

H.P. Lovecraft also wrote some great stuff.

Of course, Robert E. Howard (any of his books), Michael Moorcock (Elric), Gygax's "Gord the Rogue", the first two Dragonlance series (not the garbage that came out afterwards), all good stuff.

FormCritic
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:48 am

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series: Tedious and illogical. Pap. Drivel.

Robert Jordan's Horseclans novels: Stop after the fourth book.

The Gor novels: How to make sex boring in only 40 books. Stop after book five.

"But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world."

gyg
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:19 am

Charles G. wrote:I'll put in Silmarillion and (I expect) the to be released tomorrow Children of Hurin by Tolkien. Amazing how much this guy has written since he died in 1973... 8O

I've still never read the Silmarillion (or any of the latter Christopher edited stuff) - like the sound of this though so I'm now on the lookout for a charity shop Silmarillion!

You can never have too much of something you didn't need in the first place.

jasonw1239
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:04 am

gyg wrote:
I've still never read the Silmarillion (or any of the latter Christopher edited stuff) - like the sound of this though so I'm now on the lookout for a charity shop Silmarillion!

If you can get past the first chapter of the Silmarillion it is actually a good read.
It's just that the first chapter reminds me so much of the book of genesis in the bible with all the "begats".
I know that Tolkien had to use that technique to show how old his world was, and to establish lineage but there is only so much of that you can expect a reader to wade through. :wink:

Check out my Chaosium sourcebook.
Secrets of Tibet

Badmike
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 9:10 am

FormCritic wrote:Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series: Tedious and illogical. Pap. Drivel.

Robert Jordan's Horseclans novels: Stop after the fourth book.

The Gor novels: How to make sex boring in only 40 books. Stop after book five.

These made me laugh...how true. However it's Robert Adams, not Robert Jordan as the author of the Horseclans

Gor author John Norman didn't need 40 books to make bondage/sex boring...he managed to accomplish it way before that threshold. I picked up one of the later novels out of curiousity...."tedious" is the watchword, couldn't make it past a few chapters.

Burrough's Tarzan and John Carter of Mars series suffered from repetition....you should be ok after 5-6 books into either series, no need to go on.

AS great as it was, I thought Glen Cook's The Black Company series started falling apart the next to the last novel (number 9 or 10?) It just went on way too long also.

Mike B.

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Badmike
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 9:18 am

Charles G. wrote:Next would be George R.R. Martin's "Ice and Fire" series - great stuff but I have to agree that he is a little too eager to drop the hammer on characters that I like... but overall its very well written...

Some of the best stuff I've read in a long time....then he jumps the shark in the last novel by A. Waiting years between releases so you either have forgotten all the characters or have to re-read the entire last book/series; B. Spends an entire bible-sized installment on all the periphery/uninteresting characters and completely ignores all his most popular characters; C. Declares his next book will focus on all his most popular characters...but during the same time period as the last novel, which doesn't advance the storyline at all; D. Decides to wait another few years before releasing even that installment; E. Estimates at his present glacial pace of writing he might finish the entire series in 2012 or thereabouts. 8O
You know George, take your time. I'll check in again around 2012 to see if you ever finished that monster.

Mike B.

"THE MORE YOU THINK ABOUT WHY i DONE WHAT i DONE THE MORE i LAUGH" Cougar
"The Acaeum hates fun" Sir Allen
"I had a collecting emergency" Nogrod
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Deadlord
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:49 am

I have tried for a LOOOOOOONG time to find a short story I once read. It was about a modern-day guy who gets lost in a blizzard and winds up in a snowy Nordic country. He helps out a village who is being preyed upon a la Eaters of the Dead, using his handgun. Just before he gets transported back to his time, the villagers are talking about how he had a hammer which smote his foes with a clap of thunder and returned to his hand. His name was Taylor (or something close) and in the end he reasons that he was in the past, and the villagers perverted his name from Taylor to Thor.

If you hit a Rowsdower, you get to keep it.

Munafik
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:39 pm

My favorite fantasy novel of all time is Sax Rohmer's Brood of the Witch Queen, with Abraham Merritt's The Moon Pool a close second. The former revolves around the resurrection of an ancient Egyptian queen and the latter around the discovery of a lost colony of Atlantis situated beneath the real-life island of Ponape. Both are brimming with prismatic prose, inventive plots, and exotic locales. However, for those who are interested, these are _not_ sword and sorcery fantasies ala those of R.E. Howard and C.L. Moore, but, rather, are lost race romances similar to those penned by H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs. N.B. The Rohmer novel is a bit hard to find, being as it was last printed, to the best of my knowledge, in the early twenties. The Moon Pool is more readily available, being is it has been in print, more or less, since its original date of publication in the early teens of the previous century.

"Curses to those responsible for wrapping blackness in everlasting chains."

--WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun

bombadil
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:42 pm

I love the Robert Asprin novels about Aahz and Skeeve. Funny and vivid.

Let mirth prevail!

gyg
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:51 pm

bombadil wrote:I love the Robert Asprin novels about Aahz and Skeeve. Funny and vivid.

Ahh the 'Myth' series. Anyone who can stretch what is basically a 1 joke book as far as Asprin does deserves my vote - essential reading, but leave your brain at the door!!

You can never have too much of something you didn't need in the first place.

bombadil
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:55 pm

gyg wrote: essential reading, but leave your brain at the door!!

Perfect for me. I left my brain at the door several years ago and haven't been able to find it since...

Let mirth prevail!

Xaxaxe
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:55 pm

Did anyone else notice that this thread got a 26-month bump ... and we picked up talking about the subject again like it was just a pause for lunch? :)

Deadlord
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:03 pm

Well, I did eat in the meantime.

If you hit a Rowsdower, you get to keep it.

red_bus
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:57 pm

...plus time for a nice cup of tea.

Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!

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