Top 10 SF/Fantasy Series IMHO

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was going thru my book collection last night and this idea occoured to me, if I had to rate all my books how would I do so? I am also always looking for a good book or series so if you have any of your own suggestions, please provide them!!

And if this is not the right forum for this…apologies in advance! So off we go…

  1. Belgarid - David Eddings
    The classic poor lonely boy becomes the central figure to
    saving the world. I dont consider Eddings to be a great
    author but this series is one of the best.

  2. Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Stephen Donaldson
    A great tragic, unwilling hero story. Not your typical
    fantasy stuff, but extremly well written and the Land
    is amazing.

  3. Rose of the Prophet - Wies and Hickman
    Not a very well known series by a pair of well known authors
    but an excellent story told against a very ‘Arab’ background

  4. The Burning Stone - Kate Elliott
    A large cast and a great story, but what I love most is the
    parallel btwn current Christianity and the books religon. Very
    well done!

  5. Legends - Wies and Hickman
    This story continues the tale of the Carm and Raist and is just
    an amazing tale. Full of all the good things of fantasy

  6. Dragonlance - Wies and Hickman
    As you can see I love those two authors! But this series is the
    perfect example of what fantasy should be.

  7. Into Darkness - Harry Turtledove
    The story of WWII told in world were magic works. These
    books are huge and ecompass a large cast of people. But
    he makes it all work. A great story!!

  8. Eye of the World - Robert Jordan
    I add this one with a small cavet…Im only counting the first
    seven books!! The first seven books are just simply amazing
    the last 3-4 seem like a waste of paper to me. Even with all
    that however I still consider this one of the best.

  9. Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
    Of course I have to have this in any list! The ones that started
    the current era of fantasy…'nuff said.

  10. Storm of Swords - George Martin
    If you havent started on this series, you should be ashamed
    first, then second, go buy them!! This is not just one of the
    best fantasy books of all time, but just one of the best
    stories.
    So thats my list! Even if you dont agree with it, I would recommend to anyone to read all of those books.

2

Where would any top 10 SF list be without The Foundation Series by the Good Doctor?

3

ack! good point, that is an incredible series as well.

4

Ursula K. Guin’s “Earthsea” novels.

T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King”.

Lloyd Alexander’s “Prydain” tales.

Alan Garner’s “The Owl Service”.

Katherine Kurtz’ “Deryni” chronicles.

The first two are classics!

5

Your list seems more fantasy than science fiction.

How about David Brin’s Uplift series or Lois McMaster Bujold’s Barrayar series?

6

“Non-stop” by Brian Aldiss.

7

A few that seem to be notably missing:

“Dune”. At least the first 3 books deserve to get the series a mention.

“Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy” and “Discworld” if we can include comedy.

Narnia chronicles

8

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Liaden Universe novels

Steven Brust’s Taltos novels

Susan Cooper’s “The Dark is Rising” series

Juliet McKenna’s Tales of Einarinn

9

Well, at least nobody’s yet nominated “Invasion Earth.”

10

GYARRRRGHHHH! I’d nominate Eddings or Goodkind or even Terry Brooks before nominating anything by L. Ron! Heck, even Piers Anthony!!!

I’d add Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy to the list.

Also the Skylark series and the Lensman series by “Doc” Smith.

11

For different categories:

Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen series is shaping up to be the best epic fantasy out there–yes, better than Martin.

The Black Company novels by Glen Cook are another stand-by on my shelves. I never get tired of re-reading these.

Daniel Keys Moran’s A Tale of the Continuining Time books are spectacularly immersive, and a joy to read.

For Young Adult fantasy I’d nominate Pullman’s His Dark Materials. Nice, dark fantasy.

Finally, I’m just going to go ahead and mention Guy Gavriel Kay, even though most of his novels are stand-alones. There are loose connections between them, but they’re not a formal series as such. (Barring The Fionavar Trilogy and The Sarantine Mosaic.)

12

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Hyperion series by Dan Simmons.

The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton

Magician series by Raymond E. Feist

13

Well, now that I’m home and can look over my bookshelf, here’s some other good ones not yet mentioned:

A. A. Atanasio’s Arthurian series (Dragon & the Unicorn, Eagle & the Sword, Wolf and the Crown, Serpent & the Grail). Wonderful mix of fantasy, electromagnetic physics, and quantum mechanics.

Orson Scott Card. The Alvin Maker series and the Ender books are good (although I’m not sure about the newer “Shadow” books).

Ian Douglas’s “Heritage Trilogy”. Space marines, “Ancient Astronauts” and antimatter, oh my! This series also includes some of the better near-future technology advances I’ve seen, at least as far as military hardware goes.

Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics. Pretty pictures or not, this is some damn fine writing.

Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat books. More comedy and social commentary than strict sci-fi, but I always use them for a quick laugh.

Larry Niven’s…well anything. :slight_smile: but if we stick with series, I’ve gotta go with the Ringworld trilogy: Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers, and Ringworld Throne. And a fourth book is scheduled for next year. Woo hoo!

Spider Robinson’s Callahan and Lady Sally series. I’m not sure if it really counts as a series, as most of them are a collection of short stories with some continuity, but more groan-inducing puns I’ve never come across. Well, groan-inducing good puns, Piers Anthony has the market cornered on bad ones.

And I’m going to a bit out on a limb and expand Dob’s Weiss and Hickman to include everything they’ve done together. Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends stand head and shoulders above anything else, but I have to admit that I even liked the Darksword books. The River of Souls series had the bonus of taking all the DL “Age of Mortals” stuff and thowing it out the window by the time it was finished.

By the way, can you tell I alphabetize my bookshelf by authors?:slight_smile:

14

I’ve really tried to like this guy but I just can’t get into his books (I’ve tried though). Just personal taste I suppose but I’m a big fan of sci-fi/fantasy and I would think a book on this list should be able to be liked by the vast majority of fans of the genre. As such I don’t think GGK should make the list. Just IMHO of course.

I noticed that somone mentioned Narnia before me…sorry for the repeat.

I would also add:

The Amber Series by Roger Zelazny. These books seem hard to dig up these days though but if you come across the set jump on it.

15

Love Barrayar!

16

Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001 and Rama

Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis and Patternist

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld of course

Sherri S. Tepper’s True Game series (is it fantasy, is it sci-fi, is it social commentary?)

17

Hmm, no mention of Harry Potter?

I’d agree with a lot of the suggestions here. One series that hasn’t been mentioned yet is the Oz books by Frank Baum (which are even available online.) They may be a little juvenile, a little dated, but there’s some fun stuff there.

18

I second Clarke’s Rama books.

19

King’s Dark Tower series.

20

I second Larry Niven’s Ringworld.

A fourth book? Yay!

I hope it turns out to be a good one.