ocnbrze

hey my fellow AF family,

i thought that i would start a thread to talk about all things related to sc-fi and fantasy books here. i'm assuming that since we all love our beloved android devices, that would make you more of a geek then your average person. and what geek is there that does not like sci-fi and fantasy books?

we can talk all things related to sc-fi/fantasy things like what is your favorite book or series, characters you like, movies made from your favorite books.

so i will start the discussion.

i just bought an e-book called The First Confessor (The Legend of Magda Searus): Terry Goodkind

now first off let me just say that this is one thing i really like about amazon, they are all about self publishing. the fact that a big time author like terry goodkind self published thru amazon is huge.

it is a relatively shorter story compared to his other novels., but it brought back memories of his Sword of Truth Series/Set/Collection 1-11, Wizard's First Rule, Stone of Tears, Blood of the Fold, Temple of the Winds, Soul of the Fire, Faith of the Fallen, The Pillars of Creation, Naked Empire, Chainfire, Phantom, Confessor: Terry Goodkind.

and now i longed to be back in that world so much so that i decided to read the entire series all over again. if you have not read or heard of the sword of truth series, then i highly suggest that you at least read the first book, Wizard's First Rule it is one of my favorite fantasy series. it is very unique in that yes there are wizards and dragons, but there are no elfs, orcs, or rings in this series. it is a fresh approach to fantasy that i think makes it extra special.

here some of my other fantasy series that i love:
the The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever: Lord Foul's Bane; The Illearth War; The Power That Preserves: Stephen R Donaldson: 9780739425480: Amazon.com: Books
and The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, 3 Volume Set. (The Wounded Land, The One Tree, White Gold Wielder): Stephen R. Donaldson: Books

and of course J.R.R. Tolkien 4-Book Boxed Set: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (Movie Tie-in): The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King: J.R.R. Tolkien: 9780345538376: Amazon.com: Books

so just to get the ball moving.......what is your favorite sc-fi or fantasy series?

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Last edited by ocnbrze; January 31st, 2013 at 12:13 PM.

Dngrsone

What do you think of the final series of Covenant books?

I also like the GAP series by Donaldson.

C.J. Cherryh, and C.S. Friedman are among my favorite authors.

If you haven't read George R.R. Martin, then you are definitely missing out-- if he actually finishes the Song of Ice and Fire series (decently), he will eclipse Tolkein in the Fantasy genre.

ocnbrze

yeah i need to try the martin books. i have the first three, but i can never get too far into the first book......i always stop for some reason.

i really like the first 2 chronicles of of thomas covenant. they are great in that again it is slightly different from the norm of a typical fantasy novel or series. yes there is a ring and wizards but that is it. thomas covenant makes a great anti-hero who you learn to love over time. now that last chronicles i fell like it was more forced and not at all like the first 2. i think the publisher kind of forced stephen r donaldson to finish the story of thomas covenant with the last chronicles.

i do need to read the gap series. i hear that it is very good as well. yet more books to add on my reading list.

and no i have not read anything from those authors. i have heard of them and will check them out. thanx for the tip.

Zarafia

Great thread! I LOVE sci-fi/fantasy everything .
Book-wise, my favorite author is Steven R. Boyett, favorite book is his "Ariel". I cut my teeth on Piers Anthony and Anne McCaffrey. Then I got into Mercedes Lackey (she and I share the common interests of falconry, parrots and horses) and I really love pretty much everything Steven Brust has ever written.
TV wise, I am a hard-core Farscape fan and I love the new Battlestar Galactica (watching it right now LOL).
My all time favorite movies would probably be Ladyhawke, Legend, Avatar and The Neverending Story.
I'm sure I am forgetting some, but I'm always happy to talk about science-fiction and fantasy .

Zarafia

Oh, duh, how could I forget Douglas Adams? I got into his books just a few years ago and loved them immediately! And I must say that his audiobooks, the ones that he reads himself, are fantastic! It breaks my heart that he's left us .

ocnbrze

as far as sci-fi goes,
i love hitchiker's guide for sure.

i love anything ann mcafferey specifically when it comes to the dragon riders of pern. i love the pern universe.

orson scott card's ender's game is awesome.

i like the dune series as well.

i really do not like audio books, but hearing it in the author's own voice might be something cool. i might have to check that out.

Zarafia

You totally have to! Douglas Adams is hilarious and delightful! I have "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" and "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" on cassette tapes (both by Douglas Adams) and a CD of DA reading from the Hitch hiker's Guide (an abridged version). My brother has the entire Hitch hiker's series with DA reading, all on casette tapes. He let me borrow them for a while and I could listen to them over and over . He guards those tapes with his life .
I'm really not an audiobook person either, but DA is a fantastic exception IMHO.

ocnbrze

hmmmmmmm thanx i might have to check it out.

Zarafia

You wont regret it .

Italo

My favorite fantasy series is The Death Gate Cycle. I love Ender's Game. The other books in that series are good, but considerably slower. I'm also a fan of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis' space trilogy, and dare I say it, Harry Potter.

I'm currently reading Game of Thrones. It will take me a while to catch up to the show. I need to read Hitch Hikers Guide since the movie is one of my favorites. I just started on Ringworld as well.

ocnbrze

hmmmmm death gate cycle, might have to look into that one when i finish the sword of truth series(which could take like a month or longer as it is 11 books in the series!!!)

i still need to try game of thrones......i think the first book just takes so long to develop that it is hard for me to start and finish it. one of these days i need to try it again.

and if you like the hitchhiker movie then you will love the books

and lastly ringworld....that is old school. i read once a really long time ago when i was a kid. i need to read that one. almost forgot about larry niven, great author.

dontpanicbobby

I've been reading through the Project Gutenberg Bookshelf of Science Fiction. They have a lot of short stories, novellas, and novels from the 30's 40's 50's and 60's and earlier that are no longer copyrighted. I recommend read Murray Leinster's stories they're very entertaining and free.

Dngrsone

Ringworld is a really good series... actually, anything Larry Niven.

dontpanicbobby

Just finished a very amusing short story by William Morrison called Divinity. It's not really part of a series though. MY favorite all time series are The "Hammer's Slammers" stories by David Drake and The Mercenary series by Jerry Pournelle, almost every series Mercedes Lackey has written and even John Ringo's over the top "Vorpal Blade" and "Kildar" series. Basically the stable of authors being handled by Baen publishers put out the best stuff I've read. You can get some full length samples at Baen Ebooks - Free Library. Enjoy.

zuben el genub

Free ebooks by Drew Wagar

Series based on the game Oolite. Mostly free

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gerry142

Currently reading Storm of Swords and it's amazing.

OutOfPhase

David Wells: Sovereign of the Seven Isles. Is a great series that kept me wanting more.

Toby Neighbors: The Five Kingdoms series is a good read that but is a little predictable. I just finished Lorik by Toby and it was also a good read but predictable again. Both series are easy to read and does not require complete concentration to follow along.

Peter V Bret: The Demon Cycle Trilogy. I have read the first 2 books and just download the 3 but If I remember the first book was much better than the second but was still good enough for me to buy the 3rd.

T.B. Christensen: The Wielders Trilogy: Another good read but somewhat predictable.

David Dalglish: Pretty much anything he has written as been a great read.

John Forrester: Blacklight Chronicles: This series kept me entertained throughout the series.

Robin Hobb: Most of her series are great. The rain wild chronicles are a little slow but have been getting better as the series moves on.

Patrick Rothfuss: Kingkiller chronicles. Is a wonderfully written series that I am eagerly awaiting book three for a long time.

I think I will stop here for now, but will add to this list later. Going over this I just went to amazon and ordered some more books.

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ocnbrze

YESSSSSS!!!!!!!

i forgot to mention Patrick Rothfuss. i love his series so far. do you read his blog(http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/)? if not you should. he is so funny and smart. i love reading them. i too can't wait for his third book as well.

OutOfPhase

Yes I read his blog. It is killing me that he is taking forever to release book 3.

ocnbrze

i know.....i feel like i need to re-read them before the third one gets released. i can't remember how the second one ended now......

OutOfPhase

I also want to thank you for recommending the First confessor. I did not realize that he released another book.

I read a lot and this is definitely my genra.

ocnbrze

yeah i kind of stumbled upon it on amazon. i think it is really cool that amazon allows self publishing like that. i hope terry goodkind does more like that as i love the world that is in the sword of truth series.

i still need to read debt of bones and the omen machine which is all in the same world as well. i have the books, just need to read them....LOL

ocnbrze

ok so like i said before in an earlier post one of my favorite authors is patrick rothfuss. the best thing is that he likes to blog a lot and he latest blog is just hilarious. here is the link: Patrick Rothfuss – Blog in his latest entry he was doing a photo shoot for a fantasy calender. he even has pics.......so funny!!!! if you have not read his blogs, i suggest that you do. they are by far vary entertaining.

OutOfPhase

Still waiting for book 3....

ocnbrze

you can probably get the calender while you wait. it will most likely come out before the book.

ocnbrze

and it looks like patrick rothfuss is coming to my neck of the woods to southern cal towards the end of the month!!!!

if you want to go see him, he is touring the country for a bit. not sure how much writing he is going to do in between.....LOL

EarlyMon

Feedbooks has really added to their golden age of sci-fi catalog. I'm consuming old-school fun as fast as I can using Moon+ Reader.

Found some by Lester Del Rey that if I'd read, I'd forgotten - ditto for Andre (Alice) Norton, many of which I'm sure I've not read.

Great stuff.

ocnbrze

ok just an update, i'm still reading the sword of truth series. i think i'm on book 8, the "naked empire". i forgot how involved goodkind character's are. i think that is one of his strengths is. his story telling is about average, but the strength of his stories rely on his talent of developing his characters. plus each book tries to deliver moral messages. i also did not realize that he explains each of the wizard's rules. you can find them here:Wizard's Rules | Sword-Of-Truth.com

on another note anybody gonna watch ender's game whenever it comes out? i'm curious about it. i just hope that they do not butcher a great story.....but we will see, i guess. it is supposed to be out this holiday season i believe.

Dngrsone

My wife and I are both looking forward to seeing Ender... we too hope that it comes or decent.

Last edited by Dngrsone; April 9th, 2013 at 05:32 PM.

dustwun77

Ender's game coming out on screen?

I'll have to check that out. First time I read it, it was a story in Analog magazine.

Found out later it was expanded into a novel. Have you read Ender's Shadow?

Turned into a whole, big series, I can't keep up with it. Read another series by O S Card, can't remember what it was, sort of a seeding of Earth type thing. Some of his got kind of weird to me.

I like Jim Butcher. He had a season of Dresden Files on tv. I like the series. Haven't kept up with it though. I think his later books in the series may have suffered because of his Codex Alera.

Now THAT is a cool series!

Then there is the Beka Cooper series, by Tamora Pierce. What a trip!

Speaking of Andre (Alice) Norton, her Beastmaster, was one of my favorites, read a bunch of them coming up, along with R.A. Heinlein.

His Lazurus Long character is a trip. First met him in Methusalah's Children.
Liked The Moon is a harsh mistress. Wonder whatever happened to Mike?

Eddings, the couple, put out some great books, The Redemption of Althalus, comes to mind. The series, The Belgariad. And the Elenium series, to start.

Then there is Raymond Feist, can't keep up with him, Jimmy the hand was cool.

ok, that's enough...

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ocnbrze

i keep hearing good things about jim butcher and raymond fiest. they are on my ever growing list of books to read.....lol

and i think i read ender's game and speaker of the dead are the only books i have read in the series. i'm still looking for an official trailer, but nothing yet.

dustwun77

I think that Speaker one is the one that freaked me out. Trees?

ocnbrze

ahh yes trees and piggies, yeah weird........ok i should re-read these books before the movie comes out.

EarlyMon

That's an excellent idea. Now to find them in the stacks that were once bookshelves or figure out who I handed them to last!

Edit - score one!

http://archive.org/details/ost-english-endersgame

Last edited by EarlyMon; April 10th, 2013 at 12:40 AM.

Dngrsone

Speaker was the best of them, in my opinion, followed closely by Ender's Game itself.

Feist's Faerie Tale is the scariest thing I've ever read. It makes anything by King or Koontz absolutely tame. Again, in my personal opinion.

EarlyMon

Ellison had a short story anthology called Angry Candy. If you like shorts, I highly recommend it. If you don't like Ellison, I highly recommend it.

dustwun77

Really? That covers some ground! Think I'll stay away from that one.

davoid

Thanks Early I'm now reading Ender's Game (in between studying (actually when I should be going to sleep))

ardchoille

I'm currently on the second book of The Rho Agenda Trilogy and it's hard to put down. I purchased all three books from Amazon and keep them on my Kindle. This trilogy is very well written and easy to follow. I highly recommend these books to anyone who is into science fiction.

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walmart989

Terry Brooks. Word and Void and the Shannara precursor stuff. I read all of his, but like the books that take place earlier in the timeline I liked much more.

I absolutely MUST find this scary Feist book now....

ocnbrze

ok so i timed me re-reading the sword of truth series almost perfectly as terry goodkind is coming out with the sequel to the omen machine called: The Third Kingdom. as of right now, i'm on the last book called Phantom. after that will be The Omen Machine.

dustwun77

Speaking of timing, I read, Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, right when it first came out. I loved it!

Nightmare. Put out books slowly, seemed to have the idea that this series was going to go on forever.

Added so many characters and plot twists I literally couldn't keep up with them, much less care. Then he died.

I refuse to go back and read them and try to figure out what is up with them again.

zuben el genub

If you are a fan of Douglas Adams - H2G2 is still going. Sorta like a wikipedial

It was the Reg what won it: Online Hitchhiker's Guide thriving ? The Register

OutOfPhase

I have read them all and they ended up being good. After Jordan died, Brandon Sanderson was asked to finish the series. The last book was released this year. On a side note Brandon is a great writer and you should check out mist born trilogy.

Dngrsone

Finished reading the Honor Harrington books except the latest one... Weber deviated so much from the original few books that by number ten it just wasn't interesting enough for me

dustwun77

Too painful to even contemplate. I'm glad you liked it though.

Dngrsone

I think I will revisit C.S. Friedman's Magister Trilogy... I've Legacy of Kings but haven't yet read it. I think it's been long enough that I will read the entire trilogy in one run.

SueDNim

I'll have to limit myself to my just-off-the-top-of-my-head short list, otherwise it will be so long nobody will read it.

The Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Dune series by Frank Herbert, although I haven't read them all. The farther in I get, the more of a slog it is.
The "Myth" books by Robert Asprin. I love humor in a sci-fi novel.
The Hitchhiker's "trilogy" by Douglas Addams
The Lord of the Rings + the Hobbit by Tolkien
The Song of Ice and Fire series by G.R.R. Martin
The Narnia chronicles by C. S. Lewis
The Prydain chronicles by Lloyd Alexander
The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I occasionally enjoy some of the Star Trek novelizations
The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
The Chicks in Chainmail stories, particularly Mathemagics, by Margaret Ball
Anything by Heinlein, but Friday is my very favorite
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

I used to like the Pern books, but I sort of petered out. I'll have to start over.


If you're going Gutenberg, don't miss anything by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Can't go wrong there!

I also recommend the website Books Should be Free http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/ . It's the same catalog as Gutenberg or Librivox (public domain only), but it's much easier to navigate, and you can get audiobooks as well as ebooks.

My favorite film adaptations have been LOTR and Harry Potter. For some reason, I really enjoy Starship Troopers, although I think it was a horrible adaptation. I couldn't tell you why I enjoy it.

I can't get started on characters and short stories now. It would take too long. That's for another post.

Last edited by dustwun77; May 13th, 2013 at 07:17 PM. Reason: fix link

argedion

Not a big reader but am trying to get into it some right now I'm reading Sorcerer's Ring Bundle (A Quest of Heroes, A March of Kings, A Feast of Dragons) After these I will get the last book in the series A Clash of honor. Author is Morgan Rice

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NightAngel79

LOVED Sword of Truth! Haven't read First Confessor yet though. Tried to read through the series again and got stuck on book 6 (one with Dominic Dirtch or whatever)
Book 7 is one of the best. When


the The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever: Lord Foul's Bane; The Illearth War; The Power That Preserves: Stephen R Donaldson: 9780739425480: Amazon.com: Books
and The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, 3 Volume Set. (The Wounded Land, The One Tree, White Gold Wielder): Stephen R. Donaldson: Books
Will have to check those out ^

I started with Xanth in 5th grade. Actually read some of PA's darker stuff as well though.

Keep meaning to give that a read. Thats the Painted Man ones right?
LOVED!!!! Tawny Man and Assassin Trilogy (cant remember name of it) were AWESOME! Really enjoyed it
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

Love his blog also
His blog is a trip. It's actually where I first heard of Jim Butcher

Ender movie would be pimpin
Codex Alera?

I'm reading Dresden Files now, I'm on book 7 I think. REALLY amazing books!
Eddings is the second author I ever read. He is(was) the man. Belgariad and the Mallorean are some of the greatest books ever written IMO.

Elenium and Tamuli are amazing also.

Athalaus is damned good. His non-scifi books are good as well.

Younger Gods/Elder Gods series I'd pass on. It was written after his wife died, and he was already sufferring from dementia. I think it shows in his writing. Heart wasn't in it
Butcher needs to HIGH on the list player!
AWESOME! I need to pick the series back up and finish my 2nd read through of it

The writer that finished Wheel is a genius! All his books are amazing!
Mistborn, Alloy of Law was amazing. Not to mention all his stand-alone books!



Of course, lets not forget Brent Weeks (who i met)

The NightAngel Trilogy is probably my all-time favorite series ever (notice the username )

Another great, who I discovered reading Star Wars books, is Timothy Zahn. Icarus Hunt was a great Sci-Fi stand-alone novel

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