I’ve read a fair chunk of the genre and desire more. Here are some of my preferences on a 1-10 scale:
10: GRRM, Abercrombie
9: Scott Lynch
8: The Witcher series by Sapkowski
7: Raymond Feist’s Riftwar, Patrick Rothfuss
6: Robin Hobb’s Farseer series.
5: Erikson’s Malazan series - too much of the magical/divine element, perpetual deus ex machina
4: Wheel of Time (quit at book 8)
3: Tad Williams (quit at book 2)
2: Raymond E. Feist after 2000
1: Shannara
Please let me know what else might join the esteemed company at 7 and above
I can recommend you NOT read Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s “Death Gate Cycle”.
I started reading this series years ago in high school but never got around to finishing it. Awhile ago while visiting my folks, I found my copies of the first few books in storage, and so I decided to try and read through them again.
I remember now why I gave up in the first place. The whole series was poorly plotted, characters were flat and unbelievable with unconvincing motivations, despite the fantasy setting everyone spoke in 20th Century vernacular, there were trite stereotypical fantasy tropes everywhere, etc. etc. etc.
So I gave up again. sigh I really wanted to like this series, too. The idea for the setting (four worlds created out of a sundered Earth, each world based on one of the traditional elements) was neat, and the Keith Parkinson covers were attractive. Too bad.
Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (too damn depressing for me, but so is SoIaF)
Elizabeth Moon’s Paksenarrion stuff (too many to list)
Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings (you can thank me later) and seconding Mistborn. Also up for trying out - Elantris and Warbreaker. Sanderson has not yet written anything (including the finales of the Wheel of Time) that I have disliked.
Rachel Neumeier (although take care to make sure you know ahead of time whether it is adult or YA - it makes a big difference with her.)
Huh. The only Brandon Sanderson book I started had some characters by the fourth page swearing an OathPact to one another, and I quit reading before a SwordScimitar could ChopSlice an EnemyFoe to BitsPieces. Was I too quick to judge?
At first I thought the OP was a top ten list, and I saw GRRM at #10 and Shannara at #1 and my head nearly BoomExploded. I was glad to see I was wrong on my understanding. So, my recommendations, which I’ve recommended elsewhere:
China Mieville, Perdido Street Station and 2 sequels. It’s very rich and dense, reminds me in some ways of Malazan. The main criticisms I’ve heard of it are that he’s never met a monster he doesn’t love and so he packs his book with every sort of craziness he can imagine (and trust me, that’s quite a bit); and that he’s a dyed-in-the-wool communist, which he is. Neither of those are negatives for me. If you can deal with those two traits, you’re in for a real treat; I think it’s some of the best fantasy written in the past 20 years, despite (or maybe related to) the love/hate relationship readers have with him.
Jim Butcher’s work is very good; it reminds me a lot of Scott Lynch. Go with the aforementioned Codex Alera series if you want a created world, or his excellent Dresden Files series for a funny Chicago wizard-noir (and it’s actually funny, unlike most comic fantasies).
Patrick Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind is a very strong novel, IMO. The sequel was pretty cringe-inducing, though.
And if you haven’t read Le Guin’s Earthsea series, go read them now, now, now!
I must say, you have exquisite taste, in that it’s very similar to my own.
Therefore, I recommend the following:
Guy Gavriel Kay: start with Tigana, IMHO is best (and the source of my username). Then read A Song for Arbonne, the Lions of Al-Rassan and the Sarantine Mosaic. After that, if you like his writing style, and have a high level of tolerance for high melodrama and kitchen-sink style fantasy, you can read his Fionavar Tapestry. Ignore anything after the Mosaic.
Stephen R. Donaldson: the Thomas Covenant books, as someone recommended here, are classic, but are also an acquired taste; I’d recommend starting with the more accessible Mirror of Her Dreams or even better, one of his short story anthologies like Reave the Just and Other Tales.
Gene Wolfe: a classic writer, the kind who alternated freely between fantasy and SF. I’d start with the incredible New Sun books, which are technically science fiction but are really fantasy through and through.
For the above:
Jim Butcher: read the entire Dresden series (5-6) and attempted Alera (3)
Thomas Covenant: read the first book (2.5), will not continue.
China Mieville: read all three. I find his politics reprehensible, but enjoyed the first two nevertheless. The third derailed beyond all sanity.
Glen Cook: No idea how I forgot him. 8 for the first two Black Company books with a gradual decline from there. Garrett is decent.
Kay’s Tigana: Quality writing. I lack the tolerance for melodrama.
Wolfe: I finished the Book of the New Sun after many attempts. Although the writing was beautiful in places, it was demanding on a level well beyond David Foster Wallace. This is “here be dragons” territory for my brain
How about Bujold’s Wide Green World and Chalion Universe series? Very realistic worlds, not overly magical and character driven.
[WGW universe the magic is barely there, mainly sort of telekenisis and slight telempathy in some of the characters and in Chalion the gods are actually real, but they can’t actually do physical stuff, they need ‘saints’ to do anything physical. They can heal or harm but their presence is very subtle, generally in the format of visions and auras]
I enjoyed the Paskennarian series and can recommend it.
I know what you mean - he’s definitely in the “classic fantasy” genre, with all sorts of those kinds of silly things. But with him, it just works. He’s far from the best author out there, but his books are just so damn fun that you just want to keep reading.
Disagree on a couple of the recommendations above, but instead of being my usual contrary self I’ll just recommend Jack Vance’s Lyonesse trilogy, if you can get your hands on them. Set in early medieval Europe, but on a mythical ~roughly Ireland-sized isle in the Bay of Biscay, very fae-heavy with plenty of classic tropes done very well.
I will once again plug my favorite series of novels, P.C. Hodgell’s God Stalker Chronicles. (The link is to Baen’s DRM-free ebook versions–as a bonus, there’s a free SF/Fantasy short story collection available on the page that includes a Hodgell short story.) There are currently six books in the series, plus an anthology (Blood and Ivory). The books are dark and often funny, sometimes simultaneously, and set in a richly fantastic world.
On a lighter note, there’s Barry Hughart’s Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, the adventures of the smartest and strongest men (respectively) in a fantastic version 7th Century China. The first book, Bridge of Birds, is particularly funny in addition to telling an epic story, but the other two books are fun reads as well; they’re separate adventures, rather than one ongoing story.
I was coming in here to recommend Bujold myself. Sadly, most of my recommendations otherwise lack weight because my tastes do not line up with the OP very firmly at all. (GRRM gets about 4 from me.) On the other hand, we both hated Thomas Covenant, so maybe there’s hope.
I read Tolkien in translation when I was ten. Loved the Hobbit. LOTR felt bloated with all the lore. I might perceive the original differently through adult eyes.
I’ve read books when I was a kid, and been unimpressed with them, and then re-read them as an adult, and been amazed at what I had missed.
I was unable to appreciate how very primitive prairie life was in the Little House books, for instance, but as an adult, I can understand that the whole damn town was in danger of actually, literally starving to death because of a food shortage in one of the books. When I was in my very early 20s, I read one of Joseph Wambaugh’s LA cop books, and was puzzled at some of the characters and found them unbelievable. A decade or so later, I had lived through enough that I knew exactly what old Joe was talking about.
So yeah, give the LOTR another read. I imagine that you’ll enjoy it much more today.
I’ll also recommend Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy, as well as the single-book Elantris. I admit Way of Kings seems a bit video gamey and overly-dense (it’s supposedly the start of a 10-book series…). But the others are amazing, and he writes great magic systems with hard rules, so there’s no feeling of deus ex machina.
In a similar vein, I loved Brent Week’s Night Angel trilogy. The system of magic isn’t as well-developed as Sanderson’s, but the characters and world are interesting.
Peter Brett’s The Warded Man and The Desert Spear are pretty good, though they’re 2 books out of a 5-part series, and while the first two came out pretty quickly he’s slowed down his writing pace a bit - third one won’t be out until next year. A lot of it takes place in a generic medieval-Europe-fantasy setting, but the second books starts shifting into an Arab-expy setting, which feels far fresher and more interesting.
I’m currently reading Ryria Revelations by Michael Sullivan. It’s a bit simple, with a small cast of characters and a somewhat generic one (the main three characters fall pretty squarely in the warrior/rogue/mage triumvirate, and the wizard character is painfully cliche) but it was interesting enough for me to pick up the second and third books.
You’ve already discovered (and loved) Abercrombie, so no need for me to point you his way. Make sure you pick up Best Served Cold and The Heroes if you haven’t yet.
Chiming in on some other recommendations people have made:
Kingdom of Thorn and Blood by Greg Keyes - first two books were great, started trailing off in the third, fourth had a terrible WTF-worthy ending that kinda ruined it for me.
Codex Alera by Jim Butcher - can be a bit repetitive, but lots of enjoyable stuff. Sort of a weird combination between Harry Potter, roman legions, and the Zerg.
I loved both - what did you find cringe-inducing in the second one?
