Fantasy fans, recommend me a book!

[MegBusset]

I used to read a lot of fantasy when I was younger and quite fancy a bit of escapism now. I don't mind straightforward swords 'n' sorcery but needs to be reasonably intelligent and have good characters. Not so keen on SF.

Authors I have enjoyed: Tad Williams, Stephen Donaldson, Weis & Hickman (I was obsessed with Dragonlance as a teen), Hugh Cook, Tolkien, Philip Pullman...

Of course somuch! But I think someone else has mentioned le Guin .

Probably been mentioned but im not keen on fantasy novels but dp introduced me to David Eddings : Elenium & Tamuli series. I loved them so much we named dd2 after Princess Ehlana.

As someone said earlier, George RR Martin Song of Ice and Fire is brilliant. I've read nearly everything mentioned on this thread and Martin beats all of it. You have to be willing to get into it,but it is a true epic.
Terry Goodkind is great for an 'easy' read, passes the time nicely without being demanding, Feist's Magician and the Empire Trilogy are also superb, but his other books don't stand up to these.

Hooray, another Ice and Fire fan!

Kate Elliott Crossroads series (taking No2 on hols)
Sheri Tepper
Tad Williams
Neil Gaiman
Robin Hobb
Terry Pratchett

Echoing some of the others here with Robin Hobb farseer/liveship trilogy of trilogies

Garth Nix - Old Kingdom

My friend swears by twilight and new moon... not read em yet though.

Ooh for younger but still good - spooks apprentice set

Terry Goodkind sword of truth series starts off really strongly and lures you in, then starts to be repetitive, wandering and really poorly edited (tells you the same thing twice on the same page, using practically the same turn of phrase...very odd and very annoying)
How about Stephen Kings dark tower series?
David Eddings very good .
Maggie Furey - Aurian
Guy Gavriel Kay - Tigana (yes...) and Song for Arbonne.

Ach it's got to be Terry Pratchett's Discworld series (especially the guards ones).

Hey NotDoingTheHousework!
Glad there's someone else out there who's read it! This is the website if you want a copy - it's a really small publisher. Enjoy

OMFG someone else has King of the Copper Mountains! Iloved that book as a kid and luckily have kept it, will be reading it to DS in a year or two...
And after that hijack, here's my recommendations for the OP.
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series (to jump in at the middle, as I was recommended to do, get either Thendara House or The Shattered Chain)
For alternate-world-contemporary fantasy, try Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series (they get very, er, rude from about no 6 onwards but if you find vampires sexy then you will enjoy it even more)

And finally, Gwyneth Jones Bold As Love series of 5 books. Because they are mindblowingly fabulously wonderful and I really really want someone else to have read them so I can witter on and on and on about fusion consciousness and committing magic.

I'm gonna have to get a copy now....

I loved Guy Gavriel Kaye's Fionavar tapestry too, fantastic books.

Nothing, ever, beats Raymond Feist's Magician trilogy, and the two standalones that came after it. Also his Empire books.

I love David Edding's books too, but they are so very, very badly written that they do make me totally cringe, and also they're beyond sexist!

I've also recently read the Pellinor books, and they're fab, can't wait for the next installment.

Its increasingly difficult to get decent fantasy these days, I think, its so repetitive. The only recent thing I've read and enjoyed is the lies of locke lamora, which is excellent too!

I've not read the thread, sorry [shamed face], but if anyone wants some Tad Williams, I've got a handful of hardbacks if anyone wants them for the postage. Can't bear to throw them away, but life's just too short at the mo'. If you're interested, let me know & I'll sort the CAT thing out.

So much fantasy is made up of stereotypes: the feisty beauty, the romantic warrior, the strong 'wise woman', the spoilt princess...

Have never read any Feist, but will now.

Am I the only surviving Marion Zimmer Bradley fan? Please tell me I'm not!

And Eragon is a straight lift from Anne McCaffery. Her dragon books are wonderful - but try The Crystal Singer and Killashandra as well.

And, if you want to try something that probably no one else has for 40 years, try CS Lewis's science fiction - Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra.

Bendi williams is worth the reading!

Seeker, no you're not. I read so much of her stuff when I was about 21, and still enjoy rereading it. Did you want to be a Free Amazon too? I was quite interested to find out that when she wrote those stories, she was thinking about feminist separatist communes and how/if they might work.

I SO wanted to be a Free Amazon. But I also wanted to shag Damon AND be Magda! Do you have a favourite? I think The Forbidden Tower is mine (because of Damon).

EachPeach - it's the weight of the damned things, I can only manage a slim Agatha Christie at bedtime. If I get no offers on the freebies I'll persevere (is that right?, I used to be so gud at speling). It's wrong to throw books away but they are sooo big daunting when I wander into the west wing for something suitable they always stay on the sagging shelf!

Bendi...some Tad Wiliams books do well on Ebay, if you can be bothered to Ebay them...just in case the reading isn't a great option!

I don't know why but Fantasy books often do well on Ebay...always worth checking if you have one.

Esme - David Eddings is very sexist isn't he? In that gentle 'all women really want is lots of babies' type way. Polgara spends her whole 11,000 year life (or however long it is) performing great feats, shaping history, protecting the line of kings...and is rewarded at the very end by being allowed to have kids of her own. I was also quite disturbed by the jocular scene at the end of one cycle of books, in which two of the men are discussing how thingy and whatsherface are repopulating Maragor by having loads of triplets and twins.

Also, as has been pointed out many times before, every cycle of books is exactly the same. But they are pretty decent brainfluff. I read little else when I was revising for my A levels

What really surprised me about the whole David Eddings thing was that his wife apparently wrote them all with him, I would definitely have said they were written by an archetypal sci-fi geek, i.e. someone who had never met a real woman other than his mum. Very strange.

Yes, that is bizarre...then again, she was apparently happy to go uncredited for years while he raked in the plaudits, so perhaps there's a window on things there!

Seeker: I think I probably liked Thendara House the best (didn't ever fancy any of the men anyway) and yes, I wanted to be Magda too. Mind you ,rereading them as I got a bit older, I started being more fascinated by Rohana and Kindra and the choices they made...
I first got into MZB when Mists of Avalon came out and everyone I knew was reading it: it totally blew my head off at the time (I was 19, classic 80s 19-year-old student in some ways ie wanted to be a witch, getting into feminism but stupidly romantic with it etc)...