The first one was pretty fun, and the whole trilogy has interesting big ideas (in the worldbuilding sense) and I like that throughout, the author is trying (key word: trying) to take on some meatier issues.
But the second and third books are just too Twilight for me. Yes, Twilight. Way too much inner dialogue, two out of every three paragraphs or so could have been cut completely, and I do not and should not give one single damn about whether Vin thinks Elend thinks Vin thinks Elend thinks Vin really is really really good enough for him or whatever.
So now I have that off my chest…
Fantasy that I have enjoyed without reservation includes: Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and… well, maybe that’s it! I guess I’m more a fan of science fiction. Still… In my fantasy, I like really meaty epic-to-mythic moral significance, and explanations as to how people figure out how to live together in situations I myself am not familiar with. (You get that last more in science fiction, but it’s there in GoT, and it’s here in Mistborn too, which is part of why I kept reading.)
Oh yes, I recently enjoyed a fantasy novel called Alif the Unseen. Has both the just-described aspects in spades.
There are probably others, but I am having trouble thinking of any.
I’m thinking of tackling the Malazan series next. Does this seem foolish? What other recommendations do you have?
I have to admit, I think I’ve become something of a snob. Laughable prose is laughable. I can’t enjoy the same things I did ten or fifteen years ago. I’ll just leave it at that I guess…
I was going to make some suggestions, but then I realised I quite liked the Mistborn series, so maybe you wouldn’t like my recommendations I thought the series was enjoyable, without reaching the heights of literary brilliance. (I do agree that the whole Vin thinks Elend, thinks Vin, etc etc etc got a bit tiring).
My favourite fantasy series that I would recommend to anyone, in no particular order,
The Night Angel trilogy by Brett Weeks. (relatively recent series)
The Deverry series by Katherine Kerr - this is a bit of an older one now, but the first set of four books in particular I adore. They were actually my introduction to the genre. I haven’t revisited them in quite some time, so not sure if they still hold up. Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb - it is a bit of the cliche young boy comes good, but I still enjoyed it.
I recently read The Steel Remains and the second one in that series (there are only two so far) and really enjoyed it - it’s pretty gritty and dark, so it depends if that’s what you’re looking for, but I thought it was great. A really interesting world, characters that had some depth to them (and were not necessarily nice people), etc. The main character is gay and that does play a fairly major part in the book, and there’s a good amount of graphic sex, so if that bothers you this isn’t for you. But I was impressed with it.
ETA - I only read the first Malazan book but I really liked it - it expects you to keep up on your own, which I quite like.
Glen Cook’s Black Company is an easy recommendation.
Others that might fit your criteria are Stephen R Donaldson’s First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (lots of moral significance there!); and the Empire series by Feist and Wurts (lots of politics, if that’s something you like from Martin).
Gah, the OP detests internal dialogue and excessive prose and someone recommends the Thomas Covenant books? That’s just cruel.
If it doesn’t need to be Epic Fantasy (With Angst), I’d recommend the following:
The Riddle-Master of Hed trilogy by Patricia McKillip. Try the standalone novel The Book of Atrix Wolfe as an intro to her style (unrelated to the trilogy, though). The trilogy is somewhat in the Epic Fantasy tradition.
Tales of the Flat Earth by Tanith Lee. Beautiful prose, not laughable. Not in the Epic Fantasy mold, however.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is generally well thought of by people who have high standards for writing quality. By which I mean my wife, who normally sneers at fantasy.
I would second the Robin Hobb recommendation. The first and third trilogies are very good. I had little use for the Liveship Traders, though.
I quite enjoyed the ‘Sundering’ Duology by Jacqueline Carrey, basically her take on LoTR if Sauron was the good guy. Her ‘Kushiell’ trilogies are good if you enjoy a bit of politics and lots of kinky sex in your fantasy.
I would also recommend Wheel of Time, as it is a personal favorite…but something tells me you wouldn’t like it.
You might also want to pick up The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Much closer to adventure/fantasy than horror.
Oh, something I read in high school that I just tried again to see if it held up and it totally does - Barbara Hambly’s Dark books, starting with The Time of the Dark. It’s about two Earth people getting sucked into a fantasy world, but it’s a really interesting world which is occasionally plagued by a species of predator that attacks humans and for which, centuries ago, great big keeps of refuge were built. It’s very much about how society changes in this catastrophic event, and how people have to learn to live with it, and how the two people from our world cope in different ways. It’s really good.
ETA - read the original trilogy, skip the sequels.
I couldn’t get through it. Part way through life starts kicking the protagonist while he’s down. I realised I just wasn’t having any fun reading it any more, so I quit.
It’s called the Darwath trilogy. I liked the two sequels, but they aren’t as good as the original trilogy.
In fact, most of Hambly’s fantasy might fit the bill. I’d advise reading only Dragonsbane and not its sequels (Dragonsbane is a stand alone novel, fortunately). I don’t care for her Benjamin January novels, but apparently they sell well. Hambly’s a historian, and she does a lot of research for her novels.
I’m currently reading Mistborn and enjoying it (although maybe I’ll end up not liking the overall trilogy). But like the OP I’m more generally a science fiction reader. As such I’d recommend The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. Like The Game of Thrones series, it’s fantasy by somebody who usually writes SF. It’s a stand-alone novel, although there are two later books set in the same world.
The way I see it The Curse of Chalion was Cazaril’s story and his story was completed in that novel. Cazaril didn’t even appear in Paladin of Souls. That book was Ista’s story and she was just a minor character in the first book. So I personally don’t regard Paladin of Souls as a sequel to The Curse of Chalion because it’s not a continuation from the first book. It’s more like “this is something else that happened to some other people who lived in the same country”.
Ooh, yes, big thumbs up to this recommendation. I need to re-read these!
This too. I don’t know about the other two, but this one is fabulous.
For what it’s worth, I also like LOTR and GoT a lot, and I read the first Mistborn, liked it very well, got the Kindle sample of the second book, and just couldn’t get it up to bother with buying it. So perhaps our tastes coincide.
Something I’ve queued up is Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, by Tad Williams. It’s the first book in the Dragonbone Chair series, which George R.R. Martin cites as a major inspiration for GoT.
For what it’s worth, I couldn’t bear Malazan - had to abandon the first book after a couple chapters, and found the first two paragraphs of the second book annoying enough not to bother, despite recommendations that the second one is better.
I thought the series was enjoyable, without reaching the heights of literary brilliance. (I do agree that the whole Vin thinks Elend, thinks Vin, etc etc etc got a bit tiring).