Fantasy

I hate a lot of the fantasy books that are out there. You know the sort; a simple stable lad following his destiny with a magic sword to the dark lands to defeat some dark lord/evil one/recover a lost artifact. Tolkein's, Terry Goodkind's, Robert Jordan's series they all follow these tropes (there are so many more that are even worse). You'll be finding place names with terrible apostrophe abuse because nothing but nothing says fantasy like a liberal sprinkling of apostrophes. There's kindly wizards & dwarves with eyes like gimlets. There are hours of my life I cannot get back reading The Wheel of Time series to book 3 before I couldn't take it anymore.

However there is an alternative. The following 3 authors write solid exciting books that are more interesting.

George RR Martin
Joe Abercrombie
Scott Lynch

These authors aren't afraid to shock you, kill off a few major characters. There books aren't filled with that wishy-washy fantasy speech people talk normally.

Characters aren't good or evil they are like real people a bit of both. Some are absolute cunts especially in Abercrombies books.
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Thu 5 Jan 2012, 16:15, 5 replies)

Recommendation.
A short book, so if you don't like it it's not too much of your life wasted.

"The Magic Goes Away", by Larry Niven. He normally writes hard sf, but this is fantasy - except it's written like hard sf. It's great. Basic idea: it's set in our world, more or less, only about 12,000 years ago. Magic works... but it only works where there's mana, and the mana is running out. Gods are dying, animals that are part magical are going extinct, Atlantis has sunk because it depended on magic to keep the water out, and magicians' spells are stopping working. But the Warlock and some of his magic-using buddies have a plan to save the world...

Try it.
(SonofRojBlake, Thu 5 Jan 2012, 16:29, closed)

Out of interest, how much Goodkind have you read?
He's very aware of the fact that he's using the cliche format; his later books especially get really interesting. There's one which is basically a study of utilitarianism when superimposed onto what we imagine is the 'correct' format for fantasy.

And, without wanting to spoil too much... major characters die, several are complete dickheads, and none of them are completely good or evil.

Having explained this, I'm guessing you might have just seen the TV series.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 5 Jan 2012, 23:16, closed)

Read the 1st one
was massively underwhelmed. Decided not to read any more
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 0:01, closed)

Fair enough
The first is probably the most cliche. Try 'Faith of the Fallen' for a cracker, it's impressive and there's enough exposition that it stands alone.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 18:35, closed)

Mmmm, David Eddings
as they say, 'enjoyable tripe' but the formula became repetitive, even across different series, two quintologies with 'Pawn of Prophesy' and then two trilogies with the Sparhawk sagas. I was 16 years old then, I would not advise it these days.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Fri 6 Jan 2012, 0:13, closed)