I highly suggest Mercedes Lackey and her Valdemar series. Her books are very easy reads with clear writing and understandable plots and connections.
I have read every book in the Valdemar series and I found it very fun to trace the little details that link each of the trilogies to each other. I’d personally start from the very beginning with the Black Gryphon since I like linear reading. But if you want stories with punch, I’d go with the Magic’s Pawn/Promise/Price trilogy or the Arrows of the Queen/Arrow’s Flight/Arrow’s Fall trilogy (which is my favorite).
Have fun reading as this series as it’s 26 books long with two more books with Valdemar-related short stories. Fun to be had for a while!
The Morgaine Cycle is actually technically science fiction, insomuch as it implicitly takes place in a universe where there is no magic. In fact it supposedly takes place in the exact same universe as the Chanur series and most of her books - the Union-Alliance universe. It’s just heavy on the sword and sorcery tropes, but within a framework where something like the stereotypical uber-powerful ‘magical sword’ is actually an extremely advanced technological artifact.
But I recommend them as well. They’re close enough :).
Also science fiction.
Of course drawing a neat line between science-fiction and fantasy can be a little arbitrary.
I’m a big fan of Robin Hobb’s, with basically no idea what her critics are talking about
Anyway, her works revolving around FitzChivalry are divided into three;
The Assassin’s Apprentice series is the start, introducing the set of characters (in an admirable way, the plot is kept quite neat and tight, with few ‘added at convenience’ characters and redundant mini-plots) and the basic premise for the world.
The Liveship Trilogy is not really centred in the same way, as it’s basically set in another world, but reading it does give some insight in both the way the world’s set up and how Robin Hobb works. Quite good - actually really enjoyable - on it’s own, but not essential.
The Golden Fool trilogy expands the focus to two central characters, and does quite a lot of things I’m surprised to see in a fantasy book. Some quite heart-wrenching, but all extremely enjoyable as a reader.
Rereading what I’ve written, I see I haven’t brought much new to the table, so I guess all I can do is yet again heartily endorse Robin Hobb’s writing. You may want to skip the Liveship trilogy (or read it as a stand-alone) but her books are all greats and the 6-book Fitzchivalry saga (Assassin’s Apprentice/Golden Fool) makes a superb read.
Anyone who likes Tolkien needs to read the works of E. R. Eddison. His first book The Worm Ouroboros was written in 1921 and considered by many (inluding Tolkien) to be the high point of English fantasy. The writing is deliberately old-fashioned, somewhat moreso than Tolkien’s, but the dedication to the basic themes of heroism and love is similar to The Lord of the Rings. Eddison added three loosely related sequels:
Mistress of Mistresses
A Fish Dinner in Memison
The Mezentian Gate
Or if that’s not sufficient, you can always use The Random Fantasy Generator to get an infinite stream of top-quality fantasy.
As the Wikipedia article addresses, Cherryh herself explicitly calls it Fantasy. While I’m all for the Speculative Fiction umbrella genre myself, in this case I actually thought about it, and went with authorial dictat.
That I’d love a non-Wiki cite for, I can’t really think of a good link between the Alliance/Union metaseries and the Morgaine one. I know there’s mention (even in that Wiki article) of Morgaine being sent by the “Union Science Bureau”, but that’s it. Yet she’s described as decidedly non-human, and the tech level of her antecedent civilization is far outside the scope of the A-U series. Not that I can’t see it as possible for it all to be linked (I read King:)), but it definitely isn’t usually listed as A-U. Not in the Wiki bibliography nor in Cherryh’s own site
The Foreigner series, which seems to be her current playground,
That would be my sole cite as well - it’s from the first book. I consider it sufficient insomuch as she’s ( somewhat ) retroactively shoehorned so much of her stuff into that milieu. Cherryh may call it fantasy, but I disagree and am going to go with the “trust the story, not the storyteller” philosophy on this one :p. But YMMV, obviously ( and comfortably so - I could argue either side myself ).
Oddly enough I have only just recently re-read the first three. My old copies were among the several hundreds of semi-trashed paperbacks I recycled during my last move, so I picked up the omnibus of the first three on a whim a month or so ago. They still hold up pretty well. Gates of Ivrel was in fact the first Cherryh I ever read. I guess I’m going to have to start digging through my garage for the fourth one, which I believe I hung onto ( good thing - looks like it might be temporarily out of print ).
Have you considered John Varley’s “Titan” trilogy? Sure it starts out as hard science fiction, and remains “plausable” (as opposed to fantastic), but it contains, wizards, goddesses, musical centaurs, spirits/ghosts, demons, witches, and a plethora of other typical fantasy elements, plus lots of fighting/battles (Imagine a 15 m tall Marilyn Monroe (50 ft 2, eyes of blue) fighting a gigantic anaconda…). What makes it outstanding (IMHO), is that it manages to do this in a way that just could be plausable. No “alternate universes, fractured physics, or other “cheats””. Oh, and there is a nice smattering of sex, too.
