Since this thread seems to have been partially revived I'm going to go ahead and recommend The Vladimir Taltos Chronicles by Steven Brust.

Maybe they don't belong in the top 25 list, but they are quite good and they ended a bit of a reading dry spell for me a couple months back. At the very least they are worth a glance, the story is well paced and the writing/characterization is good (but not mind-blowing). I'd liken it to a the Dresden Files if Dresden were an assassin as well as an investigator, actually.

 

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Just finished this one (Chris Evans' A Darkness Forged in Fire) today.

This was ...Pretty awesome, actually. Its a lot like ... Well... This is Lord of the Rings if Gondor was the British Empire. Muskets, cannons, mortars, etc... Has Dwarves, Non-faggish/sparkly Elves, Humans, and elfkynans. From what I can tell, the last one is kind of a lesser elf type creature that is pretty much the elfish version of Indians/tribal Africans. Run into a nomadic village of them that move between two points on a river, following a species of fish during mating season. The women were running tits out, breast feeding in public and shit and not caring that the main character's armyfags were staring, so...

BUt yeah... Lots of characters done the way they should be. Some of them you like, some you find annoying, some you out and out hate, but you always have some feelings drawn towards the majority of reoccuring characters.

Definitely worth a read. Starting book Two tonight. Book three is due out later this year.

 

^Looks good. May give it a try at some point. I'm going to recommend



It's the sequel to A Madness of Angels, which is equally good. Might appeal to Dresden fans. It's all about magic in London, but it's not exactly traditional magic. For instance, the best defensive spell in the book is to read the rules and regulations on the back of a train ticket, which mean that no-one can follow you past a station barrier. Failing that, draw no-parking lines around you in a circle. It delivers on the action side as well - the hero's motto might as well be kill it with (supercharged, semi-divine magical) fire. Oh, and he's more than a little crazy. It's the kind of fantasy that's just believable enough to leave you disappointed when you go to the place it's set.

EDIT: pretty decent summary of both books:

There's a third one coming out next year, which I'm looking forward to very much.

Also, I'm thinking of giving The Wheel of Time series a try, but I've heard mixed things. What do people here think?

 

I personally loved the Wheel of Time, but I will admit that it is very, very drawn out and that it takes a certain kind of person to read the entire series, especially the way I did (one after another for three weeks). You should definitely give it a try though, and lay off if it doesn't float your boat.

I'm gonna have to once again recomend The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss though. I just got it yesterday and read it in one go (when I should have been studying...) and I have to say it is one of the most fantastic books I have ever read. Read it. Now.

 

I just finished Joe Abercrombie's The First Law Trilogy. Pretty fucking epic. Definitely one of the better short fantasy series out there. I just bought another one of Abercombie's books (Best Served Cold). This one is set in the same world as The First Law Trilogy but I think is unrelated to the original trilogy's story.

 

Pre-FLT.

Name of the Wind... FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Fucking Wise Man's Fears needs to be fucking released already.

 

This.

Double this.

This so much it hurts. Seriously. I read somewhere it should have been released in 2008, but then there's this:

It's turning into another Song of Ice and Fire. Which saddens me

 

I just finished reading the Alex Rider series.It was a nice read.I liked it.

The First Law Trilogy was fucking awesome.

I haven't read Best Served Cold.Can anyone tell me how it compares to the First Law?

Finally we have a release date,even if it's a year away.

According to the latest news from Patrick Rothfuss,the book is going to be released on March 1st,2011.

 

I agree completely.

For some reason, major publishing houses seem to dick with writers' first novels. Ian Tregillis, the guy I mentioned in my rec for Bitter Seeds above, had a similar experience--from when he inked the contract with Tor to when the first novel of his trilogy came out was something like two years and it's unclear when the next novel of his trilogy will be released.

 

In December last year I picked up a book from the airport bookstore which actually surprised me quite a bit. "The Painted Man" by Peter V. Brett is actually a very good read. I mainly bought it for the 4 hour plane trip to Fiji, but I've since re-read it twice. Highly recommended.

I havn't managed to read the second book in the series as I am yet to find a torrent... I mean money to buy it...

 

You have no idea how happy that makes me Sooner would be good, of course, but it's nice to know.

 

I recommend Heartsick and it's sequel Sweetheart but ignore the third book mostly all together (Evil At Heart).

 

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
It's a little dull at times, but a solid fantasy that kept me interested enough to read through it in a few days.

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'This 800-page work of fantasy — think Harry Potter sprinkled with the dust of Tolkien and Alasdair Gray - posits an extraordinary alternative history of England where magic, fairies, spirits and enchantments were once part of everyday life ... the book darkens as rapidly as the sky on a wintry English day, becoming an increasingly bleak meditation on professional envy, betrayal, revenge, madness and despair. The spells, visions and enchantments, once sources of wonder and amazement, become infernal nightmares instead. This incredible work of the imagination, which took Clarke more than 10 years to write, ends all too soon. Perfectly balanced between outlandish fantasy and richly detailed historical reality, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell deserves to be welcomed into the modern literary canon, not just the bookshelves of fantasy geeks. It's pure magic.' NEW YORK POST

 

I finished the book awhile ago and have to say it's definitely a series worth following. For those interested in the Nazi mutants half of the story (or who wish to sample his style of storytelling), Tregillis just posted a prequel short story to Tor.com that can be read for free and that lends insight into two of the key characters of the novel, Gretel and Klaus, sister and brother mutants. It works well as a stand-alone story and doesn't require having read Bitter Seeds first.

 

Ah fair enough, my apologies for not searching the thread, but I was very pleased with it nonetheless.

 

Just about any book written by China Miéville is a must-read, they're brilliant.