Favorite Fantasy Book Series?

[_Ln_]

"Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin" ~ I haven't read this yet and you made me wonder what the story of this is all about.

Don't read near golden-haired women, because you can accidentally punch them in the face in incredible feats of rage. Starting with book 2 especially.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I have read quite a lot of fantasy... these are my favourite fantasy series:

- Discworld novels, by Terry Pratchett: how can it be that no one has mentioned them yet? They parody everything under the sun in the past and present, but under a fantastic setting, and they are just hilarious.

- Song of Ice and Fire: complex books with an intrincate plot and lots of politics in a world of weak magic. Awesome.

- Lord of the Rings: a classic, but still great, better than 99% of the books that try to copy it.

- Dragaera cycle by Steven Brust: hard to find, at least in my country, but very worth it. Very fast-paced books, at times somewhat exaggerated but lots of fun. Original and very different from any other fantasy cycle.

- Elric of Melnibone cycle by Michael Moorcock: Was someone talking about dark fantasy? Well, Song of Ice and Fire is great but it's a Hello Kitty coloring book compared to this. Prepare to suffer.

- Death Gate cycle by Weis and Hickman: I read those aeons ago so I don't really remember the details, but I do remember they were very good, much better than Dragonlance (I used to love Dragonlace when I was around fifteen, but later I found them too immature).

- Narnia cycle by C.S. Lewis: I liked these books when I was like 7 or 8 years old, but I can still read them now and they're still good. Good-hearted fantasy with roots in classical tales.

- Harry Potter: also good-hearted fantasy with roots in classical tales, but with a modern touch. Very good except for the ending, which was really lame and disappointing IMHO. A pity.

[Deg]

I honestly never know how to answer this question properly. The fantasy genre is so broad and varied I find it also impossible to pick a favorite series/book. I love different books for different reasons.

To generalize I would have to say anything written in the Forgotten Realms would be a favorite. My very first novel back in the 80's was Spellfire by Ed Greenwood. This opened my eyes to the world of literature like nothing previously had before.

Wheel of Time Series: The level of detail of the setting draws me in and I get lost in the numerous pages written by a great writer. (Thankfully they found one of my favorite authors to complete the series off, Thank you Brandon Sanderson!)

Lord of the Ring's: When it comes to high fantasy and painting a picture of a world few writings match the level of Tolkien. His works are classics and will endure the test of time.

Green Rider Series: A strong female lead is nice to see and the writing evokes vivid images of the world. It is easy to get lost in the struggles of the characters in this series.

Last and definitely not least....

Anything by Brandon Sanderson. Hand's down his writing style makes him my favorite of all the "new" authors.

[Roarke]

Discworld and A Song of Ice and Fire are my standbys, though I like a fair heap of other stuff, even some of the Warcraft Expanded Universe (from when WoW was a thing).

[Grey]

I recently read 3 of the Song of Fire and Ice books and was pretty damned disappointed. The pacing is terrible, too many characters are uninteresting, and when things do actually happen the exposition is often poor (like learning about an important battle through dialogue after the event). I can't imagine slogging through books 4 and 5. I think it's a bad case of a writer doing well, getting a big ego, and no longer heeding the advice of editors. A big pair of scissors liberally applied could do wonders for the books.

[Roarke]

Just as a point of interest, the books you read came out before he was a big-name writer. Although I agree that the narration is very unwieldy at times. He can really do a better job describing someone's outfit than what's actually happening at times...

Still, I find that the dialogue (between interesting characters) is excellent and the world-building is phenomenal. It's all a matter of opinion.

[Soirana]

I recently read 3 of the Song of Fire and Ice books and was pretty damned disappointed. The pacing is terrible, too many characters are uninteresting, and when things do actually happen the exposition is often poor (like learning about an important battle through dialogue after the event). I can't imagine slogging through books 4 and 5. I think it's a bad case of a writer doing well, getting a big ego, and no longer heeding the advice of editors. A big pair of scissors liberally applied could do wonders for the books.

That is one of few series i read all in English, so you can guess my opinion.

As far as narration goes.... most of time it is eternal drag, describing anything except things which would make progress ending in sudden boom of corpses... Well, some like it some not Overall things sort of improve in book 5 although 3 and four are somewhat worst. I got feeling writer simply got carrried away with world.

I also heard some proposals like - if Danny and dragons line would appear in like book 3 and went on more condescend it would be lot of better. Same goes for a lot of other lines too.

[Grey]

He liked talking about food a lot, I seem to remember. There's more descriptive talk of various courses than there is of battles or dramatic events. And some of the character had such whiny internal monologues going on for pages and pages... And *everything* would be foreshadowed beyond any surprise. Blah... Perhaps he was too much in love with his own world. It seemed like some characters were shifted around the place just to show off the places instead of to develop the characters. I enjoyed the first book, but the second was disappointing and the third was a right slog.

[Soirana]

There's more descriptive talk of various courses than there is of battles or dramatic events.

Pretty much true. I always thought that was to represent how the life goes - 350 days you eat, work and make bad jokes and if you lucky 15 days in year are worth to remember.

Battle descriptions would need wast improvement that is true.

[Deg]

The Martin book discussion is interesting as I share similar views towards his writing as Grey. I have had a similar discussion with a friend of mine who also is a big fantasy reader and his argument to me was he found the Wheel of Time series having basically the same issues a martin's books. I really enjoy WoT but Martin's works are not enjoyable to me.

Now I pose the question to you all:

Do you find the style of Martin's writing and Jordon's writing the same? Does the pace in both series put you off? How much is too much detail in a series?