Mastodawn

What is the fantasy book/series everyone should read?

https://sh.itjust.works/post/58279627

What is the fantasy book/series everyone should read? - sh.itjust.works

So I grew up very sheltered and isolated from society and as a result missed out on a lot of pop culture and other common things. I love to read, and I really enjoy fantasy and DnD and those types of things and I’m trying to find and catch up on the great fantasy books/series that every fantasy lover/nerd should know. I’m not as interested in sci-fi, but I’m willing to read the “great” ones too. What would you recommend? Series I’ve read: The Lord of the Rings The Witcher The Dark Tower The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Dungeon Crawler Karl I’m just starting my first Discworld book.

The hobbit is great. I loved every page of it. Just don’t base your opinion of the movies if you’ve seen them, and not read the book. How the fuck did they shit out a 3.5 hour long movie from a 15 page chapter in the battle of the five armies. Holy shit.

lonefighter 6d ago

I have read the Hobbit! I was so excited for the movies and when the first one came out I almost cried in the theater. I made myself watch the second one but never did watch the third one. The book is good enough.

MintyFresh 5d ago

Some ofy best memories are of my grandfather reading me the hobbit at bedtime when I stayed with him for a summer.

GraniteM 6d ago

I still can’t get over how they stretched that short of a book over that long of a trilogy of movies and still managed to not show enough of Beorn. All of the party arriving at Beorn’s house is one of my favorite chapters and it’s just… not there. The. Fuck.

Don’t even get me started on tauriel. I’m all for diversity, but she was entirely unneeded. A love triangle? Really?

Omega_Jimes 5d ago

There are several ‘edits’ you can put together online that are actually way better than the movies. They cut out a lot of the nonsense and trim around excess to provide a 2-ish hour movie that feels choppy but good.

Tollana1234567 5d ago

i read that, but i dint quite grasp it at the time.

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

∟⊔⊤∦∣≶6d ago

Yes definitely this one

As someone who finished it, nah.

It’s a rambling mess.

TheMinions 6d ago

As someone currently reading book 8, yes. It’s a rambling mess but it’s my rambling mess.

HuudaHarkiten 6d ago

Its a wonderful rambling mess and I love it. I’m on my third re-read at the moment.

Also, bosom.

sniffs

lonefighter 6d ago

I forgot I read this series! I absolutely loved the first half, by the last half I just felt like I was only finishing it because I had invested too much time in it. I hated the way the women characters developed at the end, it felt very “men writing women”. It was so gross. I also hated how dialogue heavy the last few books were, the plotline dragged hard.

Sandbar_Trekker 6d ago

Which series was this? The original commenter deleted their comment.

I’m guessing wheel of time?

lonefighter 6d ago

Yes, I’m not sure why they deleted their comment, it was still a good suggestion and I appreciate it.

Ok so since you’re doing sci-fi as well, Hyperion/Hyperion series.

blueduck 6d ago

I just finished the Cantos this week. I think Hyperion is one of the best sci-fi setups ever conceived. The Canterbury Tales in Space is so hype, and so well executed. I could read it ten times and love it every time.

The rest of the series is ambitious, but never quite lived up to the first book. There are incredibly interesting ideas, and some excellent parts… but I can’t give the whole thing a 10/10.

Book four light spoilers

Aenea spends so much time talking at the reader, and her set up as the savior of humanity pins her character in a corner.

The discussion on how “humans stopped evolving” was an incredible turn on my view of the Ousters, and helped recontextualize the series as a radical, conservationist epic instead of just an anti-authoritarian one was also A+.

Since I just read this, I’ve been thinking a lot about how a television adaptation would work. Season one would be just the first book… one pilgrim’s tale per episode. But then I feel like the next three books would need a comprehensive overhaul to streamline the narrative and pick a clearer focus.

I started the second book shortly after reading the first, and I didn’t finish it. I think I prefer to remember Hyperion as a standalone story as it’s so perfect

Yeah, I put Hyperion/Hyperion series since the series is not for everyone.

username_1 6d ago

Constitution.

Sandbar_Trekker 6d ago

Constitution by Nick Webb?

username_1 6d ago

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution

Constitution - Wikipedia

Adulated_Aspersion 6d ago

By Nick Webb?

Or do you mean the one by James Madison & company?

DeadWorld 6d ago

I’m gonna suggest a web novel, Practical Guide to Evil. Great series about 8 books long that follows the apprentice of a medieval fantasy villain. Looks like the first book just dropped on Amazon last year

ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠 6d ago

Pale Lights the author’s ongoing serial, is even better. New chaptr just dropped a hour ago!

DeadWorld 5d ago

Just finished it. Go 13th

ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠 5d ago

Gotta love a story where “mapmaker” is the OP vocation.

I would recommend Jack Vance’s Dying Earth series as well as his Lyonesse Trilogy.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Earth

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyonesse_Trilogy

Dying Earth - Wikipedia

givesomefucks 6d ago

Glory Road is begging for an adaption, even tho a bunch of other stories have ripped off the premise. Like, it’ll be a “new” story to you, but you’re going to constantly see shit that other writers ripped off in the 60 years since it was published.

It’s Heinlein pulp SciFi too, so you can legit read it all in a day.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_Road

If you like that and want more, he wrote a shit ton of novels about “Lazarus Long”. Like, true old school 1960s sci Fi where the books weren’t telling a single coherent story, he just had to keep pumping out pages so he kept coming up with new stories.

There’s also “Stranger in a Strange land” which was known as “The hippie bible” during the height of the counter-culture movement, despite being about a man raised by Martians who returns to Earth.

Just anything by Heinlein really

Glory Road - Wikipedia

ChonkyOwlbear 6d ago

“The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” is what I always recommend from Heinlein. I feel like this one in particular has stood up conceptually and thematically over time. AI, space colonialism, predatory capitalism, class revolution. It all feels very relevant.

∟⊔⊤∦∣≶6d ago

His dark materials aka the Northern Lights series. I read it as a young teen and again as an adult. Really good.

Whenever I see someone asking for book recommendations, I always seek out comments like yours or make one if I don’t find it.

His Dark Materials aka Northern Lights (Golden Compass in US) is a really good one. I was 12 when I read the first one. It’s such a good story and I remember anxiously waiting for the 2nd and 3rd books to be published. When my friends started reading HP #1, I was already 2 books deep into HDM and was fully engulfed in Lyra’s story. HDM is a superior series that I think all children should read.

I read it again as an adult and realized how much those books really shaped my world view. Philip Pullman is an amazing storyteller.

∟⊔⊤∦∣≶5d ago

‘I always seek out comments like yours or make one if I don’t find it.’

Same here! They were so eye opening as a young kid

djdarren 6d ago

Just a note to add that if OP does dig in to HDM, bear in mind that there are only three books. There are three more books masquerading as a continuation of Lyra’s story, but they can be safely disregarded as they are a nonsense.

Slovene85 6d ago

Oglaf 😆

MapleFawn 6d ago

Excellent suggestion.

Donebrach 6d ago

insert joker laugh

Jo Miran 6d ago

I need an Oglaf omnibus.

Some classics are Conan by Howard, Michael Moorcock’s Elric books and Fritz Leiber’s “Swords” books. I really like Dune as well. Have fun with Discworld!

sad_detective_man 6d ago

oh man I was obsessed with Conan when I was a kid. those books probably did something to my developing brain

Yep, something good, guaranteed!

I loved Fritz Leiber Swords. If you like DnD it’s definitely what built lots of tropes from it. Also the episodic nature is a fun fast read

Earthsea.

egregiousRac 6d ago

Earthsea is beautiful. There aren’t very many books, and they were written across 50ish years. They evolved with the genre, allowing readers a clear window into how we got to the modern works of Jordan, Sanderson, etc.

AlfalFaFail 6d ago

There are six, which, by modern standards isn’t much. The first three came out in a four year time span and was an attempt to answer the question, “What was Gandalf’s youth like?” This was before Tolkien answered these questions publicly.

Twenty some odd years later, she wrote Tehanu. It was, from what I remember, an attempt to answer her critiques who said she had written a series where magic was not accessible to women. Then ten years after that she finished with two more books. The first of the two was a bunch of short stories that fill in some corners of the stories prior.

AmazingSUPERG 6d ago

Ok, I know the author is full of his own ego and probably won’t finish the series in his lifetime but “A Song of Ice and Fire” series (Game of Thrones) were some amazing books. I really enjoyed the first 3 of them. He’s finished 5 of 7 so I guess that isn’t too bad.

I have to counter this. Yes, the 5 books are amazing, top notch low fantasy. 4 and 5 start to lose the plot a bit, but still good. But at this point it is unlikely that we will get an ending, and the 5th book ends with massive cliffhangersand unresolved plots.

AmazingSUPERG 6d ago

That is a fair point too. An unfinished work is a big turnoff but the ride to get there in my opinion was really good. I think that is why it makes us upset that he has not finished it. We want to know how it ends.

runner_g 6d ago

halfway through your first sentence I knew you were talking about Rothfus or Martin.

MapleFawn 6d ago

I always loved the Bartimaeus books from Jonathan Stroud.

I also think if pop culture catch-up is a concern you could read Twilight and Eragon both were quite influential in my social circle at the time they were new. I have read both and I liked them too. I don’t think that they are revolutionary or the best pice of writing but they had arguably an impact.

Bartimaeus is such a great book. One of the best books I read as a kid.

PNW_Doug 6d ago

Titan, Wizard, and Demon by John Varley. The first book starts off with a bog-standard “first human exploration of Saturn’s system,” bit, but starts going off the rails immediately. By the end, you’ll meet a 50 foot clone of Marilyn Monroe and think, “eh, I’ll accept that.”

It’s one of sci-fi’s more delightfully unhinged stories.

Crackhappy 6d ago

Completely agree. It is fucking unhinged and a great read.

theskyisfalling 6d ago

Brandon Sanderson books, specifically the cosmere stuff are all pretty fucking good.

My favourite is probably Mistborn but I know a lot of people prefer The Stormlight Archives. All worth reading!

egregiousRac 6d ago

Both Mistborn ages are really tight, making them easy reads. Intriguing magic, moving story, great characters.

Stormlight has all the same elements, but it lets every character have their own storyline. It’s sprawling. It lets you see more sides of it.

Sanderson is a great airport read.

I wouldn’t recommend it outside of that context. It’s nothing special.

TheLowestStone 6d ago

He’s great at coming up with magic systems but he’s basically a very talented YA writer.

I’ve heard great things about Malazan. I should probably pick that up.