Fun fantasy reading - suggestions?

[Rias]

I'm feeling the need for a fun fantasy book. Any suggestions? Doesn't need to be super serious, and preferably not a series of 5,000 books.

[Jaster]

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

[preiman]

have you done the King Killer chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss yet? they follow a man who was tracked down so he might tell his story about how he came to basicly doom their world, and he does it over three days. it's a bit of a mix, most of the time it's fun, though the story as a whole can be a little bleak at times. there are two books a novella and a short story or two so far, and a final novel coming some time in the next couple years.

you might also do the Gentlemen Bastards series by Scott Lynch. there are a few of them at this point, but each is more or less self contained. they follow a gang of fantasy conmen on their various jobs, and the trouble those jobs bring them. just a warning, the language can get fairly extreme at points, both in severity and creativity.

[preiman]

oh and hey, if anyone wishes to find and talk about books, they can feel free to find me on goodreads. Christopher preiman will lead you right to me.

[merin]

Riyria Revelations by Michael J. SUllaven. I hope I'm spelling his name right. It's about a couple thieves doing jobs. Only read the first book (theft of Swords),b ut it was pretty fun.

Poison Study is another good one, by Maria V. Snyder. While it's not as "fun," it's light hearted and easy to follow. Plus, a cool consept you don't see often.

Anything by Simon R. Green. His books usually have a good bit of fun. Blue Moon Rising is the start of....oh it just was in my brain and flew out. forest...something forest saga. Crap!

I really recommend kingkiller, though. It's a great couple books. I still need to read the novella.

[Ahelis]

I don't read fantasy as much as I would like nowadays so you've probably read all these books already, but here are my two cents! :)

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman. So amazing.

The Abhorsen Trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen) by Garth Nix. I absolutely loved Sabriel. While my experience with fantasy as a whole is pretty small, I found the world Nix created to be so different and unique. It's really gripping. Can't say I liked the subsequent two books as much (mostly because I didn't really like the character of Lirael), but they were still fun, adventurous reads. Also a note that Garth Nix recently published a prequel of sorts to the trilogy called Clariel.

The Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer, of course.

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynn Jones. It's such a fun, frolicking novel. Quite light-hearted and so easy to read, and the author's love for language is quite apparent.

[Kunren]

The Eragon book series is great, bout four large books. Five? Can't remember now.
Bought a guy who finds an egg in the woods and it turns out to be a dragon who imprints on him, then everything after that.

The young ancients is -great- since it's by my favorite author. It's... Sorta fantasy. Yes. But it has loads of books these days, around 11 by now.

Ooh I'd really recommend.... "Questing sucks!" It's about Sehn. Sehn is an Elf. He also believes himself to be the most important person on earth, a God-king. He isn't, but he will fight anyone and anything with ungodly determination to prove them wrong if someone says different. He decided he was going to blow up the sun because it got more attention than him. So he jury rigged a bomb in the middle of his village and set it off.

[Lysse]

The Codex Alera series, by Jim Butcher. It's actually got several cool similarities with Clok. The first book is good, the second is slow, the other 3 are wonderful.

The Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher. Urban fantasy about a struggling wizard that is trying to make a living as a Private Detective, in Chicago. I love it. They're on book 16 or so, of 20 (and will have a post apocalyptic trilogy at the very end). Harry is a snarky, tries-to-do-the-right thing kind of fellow. This is hands down my favorite fantasy series to date.

[merin]

Couldn't agree more with codex alera. I excluded Dresden because he didn't want a zillion books, and I wasn't sure if 16 was a zillion to him :p.

Also yay his dark materials. fun little series.

[Dorn]

Joe Abercrombie. Two really good trilogies, the Shattered Sea and the First Law with a few standalone books in the First Law world. I recommend them all, though the two are very different both in style and content.

Pierce Brown's Red Rising trilogy, can't wait for the third book.

Stella Gemmell, The City. Just one book. Really hope she writes more.

[Lysse]

Oh! The Earthsea books, the name of the author of which eludes me at the moment, are neat as well. I've read the first one, and I quite like the way magic is handled in it.

[Kent]

Rias, I would like to recommend a standalone paperback of short stories

Swords Against Death, by Fritz Leiber

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_Against_Death

I think you'll like the tale about the Thieve's Guild in there especially,
in fact all the short stories in there except the very first are the boss.

(I can't get behind other books by Leiber as I can with this one.)

[Ahelis]

Oh! The Earthsea books, the name of the author of which eludes me at the moment, are neat as well. I've read the first one, and I quite like the way magic is handled in it.

I believe the name is Ursula K. Le Guin. I hear her many books are amazing and spans genres and ideas... thanks for the reminder!

[Sneaky]

Tells of the kin is an awesomely amazing bad ass trilogy. I believe it to be in my own personal opinion the best book about thievory and fantasy I have ever read. I recommend it three fold.
Drothe has been a member of the Kin for years, rubbing elbows with thieves and murderers in the employ of a crime lord while smuggling relics on the side. But when an ancient book falls into his hands, Drothe finds himself in possession of a relic capable of bringing down emperors-a relic everyone in the underworld would kill to obtain.

The above was copied from amazon.com, but I don't feel it gives this book justice. There's plenty of plot twists, and you really develop a bond with the main characters.
I believe it's only planned to be a three book series, and only two are published so far last I checked. Anyway, here's the amazon link.
http://www.amazon.com/Among-Thieves-A-T ... 0451463900

[Solaje]

Here are some I've enjoyed. The balance of my reading diet tips toward non-fiction (history and poetry) more and more every year, so some of these may be dated.

The "Acacia" trilogy by David Anthony Durham. I wish there were 50,000 books written about this world, but there's only the three.

"Awake in the Night Land" by John C. Wright is a collection of four novellas based on William Hope Hodgson's 1912 book titled "The Night Land". Short and good, but pretty serious stuff. The second story was my favorite.

"Enchantment" by Orson Scott Card. Fantasy that includes time-travel (I think) and Slavic fairy tales. I pulled it off the library shelf at random and was pleasantly surprised. I found another one like this the same way, but can't recall the title!

Also, "Till We Have Faces" by C.S. Lewis is probably my favorite book ever. Lewis' last work of fiction, and a far cry from Narnia. It's a retelling of "Cupid and Psyche" set it an original world.

"King Must Die", "Bull of the Sea", and "Last of the Wine" by Mary Renault are classified as historical fiction, but in my mind they're fantasy with a historical background. They're based on the character of Theseus and all his attendant myths.

[blindndangerous]

Merin, the word you were missing their was Kingdom. The Forest Kingdom Saga. As for what I'd suggest? The Assassin's Apprentice, or, if you're looking for an Urban Fantasy read, the Allie Beckstrum series. Or Ilona Andrews series. But I don't know how many books you consider to be a lot. Allie is 9, Kate Daniels is 9 as well. I have others, but I read a lot of Urban Fantasy. So if you're into that, (or want to start it) I can give more. Also anything by Brandon Sanderson. If any of you would like to add me to goodreads as well, you can find me here. http://www.goodreads.com/blindndangerous

[Xanthe]

My favorite fantasy is anything by Brandon Sanderson. The Mistborn series is great. My second favorite is the Stormlight Series.

There's also "The Scorpio Races" by Maggie Stiefvater- For anyone who's dreamed about racing atop flesh eating horses. (It's.. pretty amazing.)
"Every Day" by David Levithan- it's complicated to explain but extremely interesting and insightful.

Those are my current favorites.

[blindndangerous]

"There's also "The Scorpio Races" by Maggie Stiefvater- For anyone who's dreamed about racing atop flesh eating horses. (It's.. pretty amazing.)"
I've never thought about that, and now I am thinking about that.

[sona]

I just finished a few books and just grabbed Patrick Rothfuss' "The Name of the Wind", which appears to be book 1 in what I think is a 2 book series. I'm hoping this Rothfuss fellow is decent.

[blindndangerous]

It's a trilogy and the 3rd book isn't out yet.

[Kunren]

Just finished the first three books of the legend of Eli Monpress. Good somewhat lighthearted fantasy, seems to be about 5 books or so in all. About a world where -everything- is sentient, but only wizards can hear them and wake them up enough to talk and work with em. (Or force them to their will via enslavement). Biggest main character is a wizard thief who uses his talents to steal things, ie asking a door to let go of those painful nails or some ropes to untie themselves so they can loosen up and such. Add in his lovely interesting companions (what basically amount to a ticking time bomb of a demon in a little girls body and a friggen Beastmode swordsman) and bounty hunters and it's a pretty good series.

[preiman]

you might also find the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik interesting. Basicly it's the Napoleonic wars, if intelligent dragons lived beside humans, and were used like flying battleships. the series is almost done, the last one is supposed to come out some time next year. While there are a lot of them, each one is a very reasonable length and an almost ridiculous amount of fun.

[Lysse]

The Aeronaut's Windlass, by Jim Butcher. It's a fun, fantasy, steam punk/steam opera/gaslamp setting book with an interesting magic system, airship laser battles, and talking cats.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/248 ... s-windlass

[merin]

Oh. that's out? Interesting! I want Dresden, though. I'm sure this will be good. I just got audible credits, too. Thanks for posting that -- did mean to grab this one.

[Lysse]

Oh. that's out? Interesting! I want Dresden, though. I'm sure this will be good. I just got audible credits, too. Thanks for posting that -- did mean to grab this one.

I want Dresden Files too. But seriously? I LOVE this book. I'm about halfway through. It's most interesting to me, because it's written like a typical Space Opera type thing (such as Star Wars), but set in a gaslamp/Victorianesque setting.

The second there's enough available source material, I want to run a tabletop RPG set in the Cinder Spires.