• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Intelligent Fantasy

I can't believe there are four pages of a thread on intelligent fantasy and Neil Gaiman hasn't been brought up yet. :doh

American Gods, Neverwhere, and the Sandman series are some of my particular favorites. For those of you who also like Terry Pratchett, Good Omens is a good place to start, as Terry collaborated on it.

Missed this before until Zyph quoted it above. Every one of those books is one of my faves, but Good Omens is almost on par with Lamb by Christopher Moore as far as my favorite humorous books of all-time goes.

Speaking of Christopher Moore, all of his books would be borderline fantasy. If friggin' hilariously funny qualifies as intelligent, they definitely fit the thread.

If you aren't familiar with Moore, I'd recommend starting with Coyote Blue since it is similar in theme to Gaiman's Anansi Boys. Both of which are great books, IMO.
 
Definitely not "intelligent fantasy", I think of it more as I do action movies. Its mindless fun, but a good read...doubly so for a D&D geek ;) The entire Drizzt series of books are rather entertaining, save for the fact that as they go on Drizzt becomes less and less interesting. The side characters make up for it as well. Check out the Cleric Quintet as well by Salvatore.

I read the Cleric Quintet several years ago and though I finished it, I didn't think much of it ever again until you just mentioned it. I still have it in a box and might pull it out to read again since you reminded me. Wonder how I will take it in not being 16 anymore LOL.

What I like about the Dark Elf series isn't so much Drizzt, though he was pretty a really neat concept. What makes those books so interesting to me is how Salvatore creates the drow society so intricately from their ecology and agriculture to their family structures to their political intrigues. My favorite character in the whole series was Jarlaxle and behind him was Quenthel Baenre.

Drizzt was a nice introduction to the series but you are correct...he became so one dimensional and kinda boring over time.
 
Love Jarlaxle. Did you know there's a 3 book series with him and Entreri out?
 
Missed this before until Zyph quoted it above. Every one of those books is one of my faves, but Good Omens is almost on par with Lamb by Christopher Moore as far as my favorite humorous books of all-time goes.

Speaking of Christopher Moore, all of his books would be borderline fantasy. If friggin' hilariously funny qualifies as intelligent, they definitely fit the thread.

If you aren't familiar with Moore, I'd recommend starting with Coyote Blue since it is similar in theme to Gaiman's Anansi Boys. Both of which are great books, IMO.

Lamb was awesome. It reminded me a bit of Job: A Comedy of Justice by Heinlein. I also read You Suck, but I didn't like it as well as Lamb.
 
Love Jarlaxle. Did you know there's a 3 book series with him and Entreri out?

No. I haven't breezed through that section of Barnes and Noble in well over a year or more. Last time I grabbed a set was the series with Lloth and Eilistraee having their little cosmic chess match.

I was pretty disappointed in it, too.

Loved Artemis Entreri though. I think I might definitely look for that then. Is the series complete?
 
No. I haven't breezed through that section of Barnes and Noble in well over a year or more. Last time I grabbed a set was the series with Lloth and Eilistraee having their little cosmic chess match.

I was pretty disappointed in it, too.

Loved Artemis Entreri though. I think I might definitely look for that then. Is the series complete?

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sellswords]The Sellswords[/ame]

Servant of the Shard, which was out way earlier than the other two
Promise of the Witch-King
Road of the Patriarch

Servant of the Shard is still a fair bit of Drizzt and company, but the last two are lots and lots of Jarlaxle and Artemis traveling together
 
The Sellswords

Servant of the Shard, which was out way earlier than the other two
Promise of the Witch-King
Road of the Patriarch

Servant of the Shard is still a fair bit of Drizzt and company, but the last two are lots and lots of Jarlaxle and Artemis traveling together

Is that throwing back to the original Crystal Shard that started it all? :mrgreen:
 
My best friends been telling me I need to read the Malazan books. He's been raving about them. Says the first is kind of slow but they really pick up after that.

The 'problem' with Erikson is that he drops you into the middle of a giant world with almost no explanation of what the hell is going on. No buildup, no "convenient old wizard telling a young boy about the formation of the world", nothing of that sort. It's disconcerting at first but so damned refreshing after you 'get used' to it. Furthermore, he does the same thing in the next few books as he tends to jump around a bit. There is no 'main' character and the story is rife with good guys, even 'main' guys, dying while the evil bastards win.

Regardless, he is an excellent storyteller and a great writer [I mean this literally].
 
The 'problem' with Erikson is that he drops you into the middle of a giant world with almost no explanation of what the hell is going on. No buildup, no "convenient old wizard telling a young boy about the formation of the world", nothing of that sort. It's disconcerting at first but so damned refreshing after you 'get used' to it.

Yes, I sort of wish he did something about book one with that, maybe a editors edition ;)

I was crushed when I offered the first book to a firend who enjoys a lot of fantasy and they couldn't get past around page 100 and returend it. Maybe I'll suggest starting with house of chains first...Karsa's tale starts out with no significant references to earlier books and is easy enough to jump into, almost like a fantasy twist on a native american theme. Seeing someone pass on that treasure trove of pure goodness makes me sad.
 
I've recently been reading the Belisarius trilogy... it's about an intelligence from the future traveling back to the early Byzantine Empire and helping their greatest general fight another intelligence from the future that's started an evil empire in India
 
I finished The Adept by Katherine Kurtz.

Not the most intelligent fantasy ever but it was a fun read.
 
Eragon by Christopher Paolini was great.
 
Wow, reading through this thread is like reading through my bookshelf. Jordan, Pratchett, Gaiman, Scott Card, Salvatore, Eddings... I can think of a few more, though.

Phillip Pullman gets the obligatory mention for the His Dark Materials trilogy - don't let the film version of The Northern Lights put you off. In an 'if you liked that...' vein, Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy is also good reading, although more kiddish. More kiddish still would be the Book Of The Crow series, by Catherine Fisher.

If you want to veer into sci-fi for a short while, I'd definitely recommend Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, both by Neal Stephenson. More recent (and closer in setting to 'now') would be Cory Doctorow's Little Brother - freely available online, I started reading and dropped out of all contact with the world for 7 hours until I'd finished it.

Finally worth a mention is Steve Aylett for his book Shamanspace. Many people won't like the book at all - Aylett's bizzare/pretentious turns of phrase take some getting used to and the subject matter is extremely odd (God has been proven to exist and the race is on for revenge) - but I loved it. General Aylett is just fun to read - have a look at this page for some quotes to rival Pratchett.
 
Going the sci-fi route, I'd recommend the Deathstalker series by Simon Greene. He's very British and uses an almost absurd level of swagger with most of his characters. Overall, his series is extremely fun and has possibly some of the best action/fighting sequences I've ever read in the one on one arena.
 
Anyone read the latest in the WOT series? The one co-written by Sanderson? Was it good?
 
Anyone read the latest in the WOT series? The one co-written by Sanderson? Was it good?
Not yet - I skimmed through it in my local bookshop and it looked up to scratch, but I'm going to wait for it to come out in paperback before I buy, as I have all the rest in that style. I have a copy of Elantris (Sandersons first book ever) as a tester though, due to be read after Christmas. Brandons website makes for interesting reading, too - he went through all the other WoT books and wrote some interesting commentary on them.

I remembered another awesome fantasy series! I've only read the first so far, but the Night Watch series by Sergei Lukyanenko starts in absolutely stunning fashion. They've been made into a couple of pretty decent films (hopefully with a third on the way), but the books are far far better. A well-realised fantasy world, plenty of people with hidden agendas, a barely-hidden subtext on Russian politics and lots of clever twists made for great reading. I can't wait to get the other three.
 
Can I just put forward Tigana - Guy Gavriel Key. Not a big fantasy fan but this book is a genuinely excellent read and for one book its a well crafted world.
 
I just used my amazon christmas gift to order a bunch of stuff, and discovered that the early Garrett PI books are back in print. Almost the whole set of the earlier ones is one the way for Thursday delivery!
 
Just got the Erikson "Malazan" books. Going to be reading those and wishing that Martin will hurry up and get a Dance with Dragons written.

Can't wait for the "A Game of Thrones" HBO series
 
I might also recommend checking out my blog, where I interview other authors, most of whom are fantasy writers like myself:

Michael A. Ventrella's Blog

Damn Groucho,I remember when it was just Jonathan Maberry.....Now you got yourself a whole library full of authors.:lol:
 
Last edited:
Is it inappropriate to recommend my own novels?

Website for Author Michael A. Ventrella

I might also recommend checking out my blog, where I interview other authors, most of whom are fantasy writers like myself:

Michael A. Ventrella's Blog

Just looking at your list of blog interviews was fascinating, and makes me want to run out and buy a bunch of the Allen Dean Foster books I enjoyed as a kid. Good work sir.

Edit: oh, and welcome to debate politics!
 
Anyone read the latest in the WOT series? The one co-written by Sanderson? Was it good?

I did. And it was suitably awesome. Can't wait for the last two. I've been waiting like 15 years...
 
Back
Top Bottom