The Death Gate Cycle

I haven’t read a single Terry Goodkind novel. Would you recommend him heartily, or just sorta?

Here’s who I’ve read the most:

Tolkien (super obviously)
David Eddings
Raymond E. Feist
Robert Jordan
Katherine Kerr (Deryni Novels)
Katherine Kurtz (Daggerfall, Darkfall, etc)
L.E. Modesitt (Recluse)
Michael Scott Rohan (Winter of the World)
Weiss/Hickman
Brian Lumley
Robin Hobb
Some David Farland (didn’t like)
Some Terry Brooks
Piers Anthony
Tad Williams (Excellent)
Ursula K. LeGuin (of course)
Some R.A. Salvatore

And some others I’m probably forgetting.

Of these, only the Tad Williams three swords novels, the Death Gate Cycle, and the Raymond E. Feist novels get a strong recommendation from me.

Nobody has to “recommend” Tolkien! :-)

Discover Guy Gavriel Kay and China Meiville. Kay is a historical fantasist who can write like mad and other then his first series of books - Fianovar Tapestry has not done cliches at all - even his cliche trilogy was excellent though. Wonderful writer. Meiville is a blend of Steam Punk with a twist of fantasy and is another great new talent. Neither milk series for money

I can’t recommend Goodkin - the first book was novel but now he has also degenerated into the writing to print money mode of operation.

I’m with you on this one, Spoofy. Actually, I am getting kind of burned out on Fantasy as a genre. Its all the same, except for Harry Potter anyway. /ducks and runs

So, Spoofy, where does Terry Goodkind fall in your continuum? His new book comes out any day…[/quote]

You like Goodkind and Potter, but not Martin… I need a “looks at the floor and shakes head” emoticon.

Spoofy - Are Williams’ swords novels better than the Otherworld(?) trilogy? I read the first in that series and it druuuuuuuug on forever. It would get interesting as he has some great ideas with the whole virtual universe dealie, but, man, it felt like work finishing it.

Katharine Kerr actually wrote the Deverry novels, which are named Daggerspell, Darkspell etc, while Katherine Kurtz wrote the Deryni novels.
By coincidence, both take Celtic cultures as a major influence.
I’m a big fan of Katharine Kerr, so read those :)
I don’t like George R. R. Martin, by the way.

There are some long parts in the “Memory, Sorrow & Thorn” trilogy. I haven’t read the Otherworld series however.

Unfortunately, it looks like his newest book is a cliche wrapped in a Terry Brooks idea stolen from C.S. Lewis’ cold dead hands.

Gag. Note to authors: the word “Faerie” or any derivative is so pathetically cliche’d that you might as well just name your fantasy realm “Generic Fantasy Realm.”

Ding-dongs.

Also, note the “grammer” on that last sentence.

Williams’ Sorrow, Memory and Thorn books are good up until the last one, where it kind of falls apart. A series I highly recommend is Steven Erikson’s Malazan Tales of the Fallen books. The first book is titled Gardens of the Moon. Fantasy on a massive scale with a history reaching back almost 500,000 years. Interesting characters, solid writing. The story is extremely complex and he doesn’t waste any time explaining his world–you’re thrown in head first.

The downside to all this is that the books have not been printed in the US, and there are already four books out. I ordered mine from Amazon UK.

Ummm… I didn’t really mention Goodkind because I like it as much as its something I’m familiar with. I do like some of the books, but some of them are dogs. And he does seem to be dragging it out as long as possible, which would be ok if each book would hold up its part of the bargain, but as with most series, this just isn’t true.

Spoofy, all I will say is read the first one, The Sword of Truth, and if you like it, read the next one. They might not be great, but they are certainly readable and entertaining. You could do far worse.

[quote=“King_Lupid”]

Ummm… I didn’t really mention Goodkind because I like it as much as its something I’m familiar with. I do like some of the books, but some of them are dogs. And he does seem to be dragging it out as long as possible, which would be ok if each book would hold up its part of the bargain, but as with most series, this just isn’t true.

Spoofy, all I will say is read the first one, The Sword of Truth, and if you like it, read the next one. They might not be great, but they are certainly readable and entertaining. You could do far worse.[/quote]

Ahhhhh, OK. I misunderstood. Well, I was going to try him out. Bought the first Sword book directly after reading the first two Martin books which, as has been established, I loved. I read the first 200 pages and just could not get into it. At all. Maybe it was the afterglow of reading books I could not put down and sped through. I don’t know. I put the Goodkind book on the shelf and might try again.

It must be just a matter of having different tastes. :)

Spoof:

Try David Gemmell. Heroic Fantasy that I think might fall into what you’re looking for.

I know its really quite rude to counter-advise someone else’s benign advice, so I apologize in advance, sorry for being such a git like that.

But I really must say to SpoofyChop, if you’re concerned about this Martin gore/sex angle, do you really think you want to read Goodkind? This is the guy who writes plots where an evil S&M chick routinely tortures the main character naked and makes him have sex with her against his will when he loves another, and we’re supposed to buy that in the end he has sympathy for her. This is the series where a weird cult of very Jordan-esque Sisters get violated by a large minotaur with a barbed, spiked phallus that rips their genitals apart to produce something (I forget what). The stories where the climax is that the main woman character must have sex with a sadistic rapist who mutilates his victims afterward in order to save the destruction of her people from an ancient prophecy. Where you can bask in descriptions of an pillaging where poo is scraped across the walls into girl’s twats. And of course, the lovely climax of I think the sixth book, wherein an entire nation of people set against the heroes suddenly decide to Be Good and revolt when they see the main character’s sculpture – because, you see the statue represents such wonderful spirit and freedom they can’t help themselves.

If you’re interested in seeing just how bad fantasy can get, I recommend Goodkind. But since you seem to be concerned with these types of things, I don’t recommend it. The only reason I read each one, was because I was sick and it was so delightfully bad, it made me laugh every pages and want to slap myself thinking I can’t have just read that. It was almost addictive in its badness. That’s pretty much the only reason I read all of them (also there was no one who yanked their braid every other paragraph).

There is one scene where everyone rides naked to a huge battle painted in white that’s kinda worth reading…

-Kitsune

Ouch. Ok, good points there, Kitsune. There is some ‘adult’ material in the Goodkind books. But you make it sound like it comprises a large percentage of the material, and I don’t really feel that it does. To be fair though, the original concern was any of this stuff being present, and I suggested it without even considering it. Thanks for pointing out my error.

Whoa! I had no idea that stuff was in Goodkind, Kitsune. Thanks for the warning.

I’m gonna stay away from him…I don’t even really want to read a few pages of that kind of stuff.

Goodkind? On top of Kitsune’s content objections, the man just can’t write. I started in to the first book and thought to myself “He can’t write dialogue.” I kept going because that’s not quite a dealbreaker for me, but eventually I found myself thinking “He can’t plot, either. He just has random crap for his characters to run in to.” Eventually it got to the sexual stuff which I felt was gratuitous, and I was reading out of spite at that point to make myself angry at how bad it was. Sadly, I then failed to do anything constructive with that anger.

I’ll recommend some older stuff that you should be able to find. Hunt down Fred Saberhagen’s Books of Swords. The Books of Lost Swords all happen after the books of Swords, so don’t be fooled and read them out of order. I think they’re still selling the collected Complete Book of Swords, which has all three of the orignal books. This is a little more fantastic than Martin and less bloody, but certainly more nuanced and better written than Eddings. The gods call for the forging of twelve swords, each with a singular power, and spread them among humanity as a great game. I’d tell you more but it would be an awful spoiler.

Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories and books are all good. I got my versions from (and now I descend into true nerd-dom) the Science Fiction Book Club collected editions. This is some of the best buddy-story fantasy in existence. I believe White Wolf/Borealis has collected or reprinted some of this in trade paperback form.

Michael Moorcock’s Elric saga is the fantasy-genre-back-breaking Dark Knight to Ron E. Howard’s Conan. Moorcock tends towards purple prose, and Elric is an effete morose whiner, but this is a seminal work in the genre. If you ever wondered where Law/Chaos came from, this is the place. Again, White Wolf/Borealis has reprinted this work.

For some not-quite-so-old stuff Steven Brust and Glen Cook have been brought up in other threads. Steven Brust’s Jhereg series is almost a fantasy version of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe hard-boiled-detective stories. If that means nothing to you, you should a) know that this is a strong reccomendation to read Brust, and b) you should also go read Chandler. Glen Cook’s Black Company series starts off grim and barely competently written, but has evolved into a complex and richly layered story of a mercenary company stranded in a southeast-Asian inspired fantasy world. By mercenary company, I mean a Renaissance Italy-style mercenary company, not a godawful modern-day-men-transported-to-fantasy-world piece of tripe (not that this sort of thing necessarily has to be a piece of tripe, it just usually is).

Thieves’ World is some of the best fantasy genre (as opposed to fantastic) short fiction period. The fact that it is is in a shared world with some very talented writers contributing only adds to its appeal. I have scrounged a complete set of my own out of used book sales and the like, and have no idea how impossibly difficult it may be to find these books now. I mention it only because the first few volumes (of 12) are that good, and the rest still well written.

It’s not quite straight fantasy, but Gene Wolfe is science fiction’s Faulkner, and his Book of the New Sun is masterful. This man is on my “buy in hardcover immediately” list as well as my “makes me weep with envy”. His prose takes some getting used to, but this is an incredible series. Tor is reprinting this (among other of his books) in trade paperback as Sword & Citadel, and Claw & Lictor. If your fantasy tastes run more to the Greek epic, then his Soldier of Mists/Soldier of Arete series is like Memento in ancient Greece, but one hundred times better.

I think those should probably keep you busy…

You may want to try Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber series, it’s good stuff and read differently than most mainstream fantasy books.

I actually found War of the Flowers a great read and the “Faerie realms” was fairly unique, much more steam-punk than the traditional sword-and-sorcery realm. Best of all its a standalone book so no waiting years for subsequent installments to come out.

Hmm…well I guess a good novel can lurk inside a cheesy premise.

Anyway, I finished Elven Star (book 2) last night and I was sort of bummed about the prospect of reading book 3. Fire Sea is just so depressing and everything.

I also remember most of what was in Fire Sea and Serpent Mage (book 4).

So I skipped those two books and went right to 5, Hand of Chaos.

Oh well.

I’ll also recommend Guy Gavriel Kay. One of my favorite fantasy authors.

Terry Brooks books seems like they would be up your alley Spoofy. Nothing great, IMHO, but OK for a Saturday afternoon read. I would say he’s closer to the David Edding’s and Raymond E. Feist type fantasy than the Georg R.R. Martin style.

A few fantasy authors I’ve enjoyed over the years,

Janny Wurts
Robin Hobbs
Dennis L. McKiernan
Sean Russel

I’m currently trying to read War of the Flowers but it’s slow going. And I like Williams’ prose.

I’d rather masturbate with sandpaper than read another Eddings book. When you have to plagiarize yourself it’s bad enough, but when you have to do it within the same novel (Redemption of Athalus?), it’s pathetic. The sad thing is he comes off as a complete arrogant prick in interviews.

Gemmell is excellent for swords 'n sorcery-style light reading.

George Martin is the current bearer of the One Ring. 'Nuff said.

Diana Wynne Jones has an interesting “dictionary” on the subject - The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. May be worth checking out for a few laughs… includes entries such as:

Socks are never worn in Fantasyland. People thrust thier feet, usually unwashed, straight into BOOTS.

Female Mercenary. this will be a COMPANION on your Tour. She is usually tall, thin and wiry, silent, and neurotic. SEX scares her. This is because she either came from a NUNNERY or was raped as a child. Or both. Somehow this inspired her to become a MERCENARY and she is very good at her job. You can rely on her absolutely in a FIGHT. She can usually kill two people at once while guarding your back in between. The rest of the time, she will irritate you with lots of punctilious WEAPONS cleaning and a perpetual insistence that a proper watch be kept. Mostly, she will have no Magic TALENTS, but sometimes, in an emergency, she will come up with a GIFT or a VISION. You will end up grudgingly admiring her.