Recommendations sought: High/Epic Fantasy

[Kildalton]

Hi all, Happy New Year,

I’m hoping to get some recommendations for starting a new book.  After a good ten year hiatus in reading, I started back up around 18 months ago, and have since read the Kingkiller Chronicles, the Wheel of Time, and the Stormlight Archives - the latter two series were both an absolute joy to read.

I’m now looking for my next read, and I’d be grateful for any suggestions.  I particularly like large, epic fantasy stories, with many characters, adventures, conflict/war, good vs evil, multiple races/humanoids etc.  As such anything like LOTR, WOT or Stormlight would be great. 

From some initial research I have been considering one of the following series:

- Malazan
- Farseer
- First Law
- Shannara
- Mistborn


I’d be very grateful for some views!

Many thanks

Kildalton

[eclipse]

Lies of Locke lamora

Retribution Falls

The city of Brass

[ScarletBea]

Hi, welcome to the forum

You can definitely expand the list, I'll go have a think and come back later...

Edit: So, based on what you said you want (large, epic fantasy stories, with many characters, adventures, conflict/war, good vs evil, multiple races/humanoids etc), my opinion is that these would fit the brief, more or less:

- Malazan
- Farseer
- The Faithful and the Fallen (John Gwynne)
- The Twilight reign (Tom Lloyd)
- Lightbringer (Brent Weeks)
- The winnowing flame (Jen Williams)

However, you may want to expand the genre and then go for the others:
- First Law
- Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentlemen Bastards series) (Scott Lynch)
- Retribution falls (Tales of the Ketty Jay series) (Chris Wooding)
- Broken Empire (Mark Lawrence)
- Echoes of the fall (Adrian Tchaikovski)
- Godblind (Anna Stephens)

[Kildalton]

Thanks both.

eclipse - those sound good. Particularly like the sound of lies of Locke Lamora.

Have either of you read riftwar?

[ScarletBea]

Oh I've just updated my post!

I read the first book of the Riftwar series, but didn't like it enough to continue. It was ok as a standalone, though.

And if you like the sound of Locke Lamora, then check these too:

- Age of tyranny (Cameron Johnston)
- The Greatcoats (Sebastien de Castell)
- Night's masque (Anne Lyle)

[eclipse]

Riftwar is okay it’s like a starting point for people new to fantasy like a gateway.

[Neveesandeh]

I really liked Mistborn, but I haven't read Stormlight yet and I have heard it's better. I would say the first trilogy is definitely worth reading, but don't expect the same quality as Stormlight.

[Elfy]

Thanks both.

eclipse - those sound good. Particularly like the sound of lies of Locke Lamora.

Have either of you read riftwar?

I’ve read Riftwar, which particular part of the series were you referring to? The Lies of Locke Lamora is one of my favourite ever books (I think I’ve read it about 20 times). I’ll add a couple of other recommendations there. Anything by Joe Abercrombie, and Nicholas Eames’ Kings of the Wyld is great.

[cupiscent]

Lots of great suggestions here! I'm going to add in, since I was talking about it just yesterday - Jenn Lyons is in the middle of an EPIC series, first book Ruin of Kings.

Of the options you initially listed, I really enjoyed Mistborn and the First Law, but they're all classics for solid reasons!

[Bender]

I'd skip Shannara. It was good, but pales in significance compared to rest in list.


I'd recommend the below:

- First Law by Joe Abercrombie
- Riyria (Revelations and Chronicles) by Michael J Sullivan
- Divine Cities by Robert Jackson Bennett
- Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss
- Paternus Trilogy by Dyrk Ashton
- Farseer by Robin Hobb
- Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
- Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding

[Kildalton]

All, just wanted to say thanks for the recommendations - plenty good reading there and I look forward to starting a good number of these now.

In the meantime I've picked up Malazan, and am several hundred pages into Gardens of the Moon.  The going is good so far!

Cheers!

[isos81]

All, just wanted to say thanks for the recommendations - plenty good reading there and I look forward to starting a good number of these now.

In the meantime I've picked up Malazan, and am several hundred pages into Gardens of the Moon.  The going is good so far!

Cheers!

Nice choice. It's my all time favorite.

Feel free to check this reread if you feel overwhelmed. It's a massive amount of work, and helped me a lot.

https://www.tor.com/series/malazan-reread-of-the-fallen/

[ScarletBea]

I prefer to use the official Malazan wiki.

Also, @Kildalton , we've got a readalong section for comments HERE. Come and share your opinion if you'd like - there was an initial conversation with several members reading at the same time, but then when I was reading them, much later, I still added my comments, and it helped making sense of things hehe

[Rostum]

Hi

Just a thought have you read Lord of the Rings?