Rainbow Six (Tom Clancy) is an awesome book, and if you haven't read it already, I recommend you get it.

 

Looking for a badass fantasy book

I'm looking for a fantasy book, or a fantasy book series that is relatively badass, and preferably has well written sword fights. The Codex Alera series comes to mind. Jim Butcher is my favorite writer. Needs to be fast pace, and can't drag on too much. Thanks.

 

Roger Zelazny wrote The Amber Chronicles is one of my favorite series.

Heres a wiki link of the books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_Chronicles

 

John Ringo's "Council Wars" series is fucking amazing: blood, guts, sex, and dragons. Also mass naval, aerial, ground, and underwater battles.
Heres his site: http://johnringo.com/Books/CouncilWars/default.asp

 

Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy (followed by the Liveship Traders trilogy and then the Golden Fool trilogy which are in the same universe).

It's the most epic fantasy books I've read since Lord of the Rings. Even the Wheel of Time aren't as good (even though I liked them a lot).

 

If you want all-out violence (swords yeas, but mostly knives/hand-too-hand close-in stuff) then you should check out Mathew Stover's (who novelized the SW RotS movie) Overworld series. First books is Heroes Die, followed by The Blade Of Tyshalle. In terms of sheer violence it pwns WoT/Farseer/anything else. The main character defines the term badass. Check the series out. You won't regret it.

Also another character that maybe comes close in terms of badassness is Erevis Cale series in the Forgotten Realms. Paul S. Kemp's Twiight Falling, Dawn of Night, Midnight's Mask and subsequent books are very good.

If violence is your stuff: Overworld. If you want good original fantasy instead of tropes, anyhow.

 

I agree with Inky. Robin Hobbs' books are pretty damn good. I seem to remember a while back that she got a little bit of bad press on the forums for her open condemnation of fanfiction.

Trudi Canavan is alright, but her two series are almost completely magic based

 

The Night Watch series.
Night Watch
Day Watch
Twilight Watch
These books are epic.
P.S. I have to agree with The-Hyphenated-One on the Amber Chronicles. They aren't half-bad, although at some points through the books I got the feeling that I was reading fanfiction.

 

I'm almost finished the first Amber Chronicles, and I have to ask, do the fight scenes get any better in the later books? They seemed pretty half assed to me. He basically says he got into a fight, then moves on.

 

As far as I remember, (I finished reading Amber 4 years ago) the battles scenes were pretty much all the same. I warned you about fanficishness. Some parts were pretty lame. It's still a good read.
P.S. How could I forget: The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski

 

Wheel of time by Robert Jordan. Unbelievably long but epic in every sense of the word. He died before he could finish the last book but he left detailed notes and had someone designated to finish it for him.

 

Dhampir by Barb and J.C Hendee. The fight between Margiere and Rashed at the end of the first book is pretty damn good, and as the series goes on the fights only get better. Not to mention the villians are portrayed wonderfully.

 

This is kind of horror/fantasy, and is not particularly 'high fantasy', but The Dark Tower by Stephen King is so badass that its in a class of its own.

I know a lot of people don't think its anything special, and it took King thirty years to finish, and it may be the least read of all his books, but volumes one to seven of The Tower are quite possibly the best stories I've ever read.

The series:

The Gunslinger, The Drawing of Three, The Wastelands, Wizard and Glass, Wolves of the Calla, Song of Sussanah, and The Dark Tower.

There are no real sword fights, but the main protagonist is the last of an ancient line of 'Gunslingers'. And his guns, his twin revolvers, are considered holy relics much akin to Excalibur, wielded by Arthur Eld. Roland of Gilead is the last surviving member of an order of knights that served the White before the 'world moved on' (read, ended apocolyptically).

Its a great example of the other world theory and also of the entropy of the universe and creation. A little urban fantasy as it is set both in a world that mirrors our own, thousands of years into the future, and in several different versions of the 'real world' this world - New York, mostly, when its back in present time. It encompasses a lot of characters and themes from his other novels, but you don't have to have read any of them to get The Dark Tower, it just adds to its depth.

Awesome stuff - really, well worth the read. I must've been through it a dozen times by now. Always something different about it. Give it a shot, if you haven't already.


~~Joe

 

The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavrial Kay has some very good detailed fights. It starts off with 5 people from toronto who are pulled into a world that isn't theirs by a magician. After that, well you'll just have to read the books

Its a bit tolkein-esque, which makes sense because the author helped Christopher Tolkein edit The Silmarillion.

Another wiki link for your viewing pleasure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fionavar_Tapestry

 

ummm all the Ted Dekker books are pretty baddass.

 

The Dark Tower series is amazing, I highly recomend it.

 

Ever read The Deed of Paksenarrian series by Elizabeth Moon? It's very martial-oriented, and reviews called it the successor of LOTR...

It's an old favorite of mine with lots and lots of sword fighting, and a bit of magic as well.

 

John Ringo's name is familiar... Ah, he's published a swag of books in the Baen Free Library including the first two of the Council War series.

Council War 1 - There Will be Dragons
Free Online!

Council War 2 - Emerald Sea
Free Online!

Council War 3 - Against the Tide
Free Preview of First Ten Chapters!

Council War 4 - East of the Sun, West of the Moon
Free Preview of First Seven Chapters! Book not yet released.

I haven't read any of these, but it's a cheap and quick way of testing the series. Baen's Free Library strikes again!

Yak.

 

Ah, and how could I forget...

The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss. Possibly the greatest and best fantasy novel published since Tolkien himself decided to write about hairy circus folk.

Here's the author's website:
http://www.patrickrothfuss.com/content/index.asp

It is ridiculously good - absolutely great first novel. This author will be around for a long time.

Yeah,

Joe

 

Check out Lian Hearn's "Tales of the Otori" series.

here:

1st book, "Across the Nightingale Floor" http://www.amazon.com/Across-Nighti...d_bbs_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202856001&sr=8-4

2nd book, "Grass for His Pillow"
http://www.amazon.com/Grass-Pillow-...bs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202856001&sr=8-2


Really great stuff.


edit: Also, the best fantasy series ever (in my opinion): George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire". Truly epic and original. Buy it now.