Books:Malazan Book of the Fallen. I think its a masterpiece High fantasy with a distinct world and lore and does a very good job of subverting high fantasy tropes. Love it.

Gamelanescape Torment because everything about that world was just perfect and playing as the nameless one is always a distinct experience.

Don't know about movies. Lord of the Rings.

 

To be fair, they are not normal people, nor are they human or in the real world. It's not like everything else beside that was totally realistic and logical and if I can buy magic, I can buy this. The hand stuff was a bit annoying but I can easily roll with it.

That said, they were boring and forgettable. Until they were mentioned in this thread, I had totally forgotten they were in the books. Kvothe's adventures in the city with the humans was always more interesting.


As to my favourite high fantasy works, A Song of Ice and Fire and the Disworld books are definitely it. Others that I enjoyed was the Warcraft setting, Dragon Age, the Hobbit, Codex Alera, Rothfuss, Sanderson (Stormlight and Mistborn) andThe Lies of Locke Lamora.

Probably forgetting some stuff.

 

David Eddings' Belgariad (and the sequels and prequels thereof), for being a super-efficient and fond distillation of the entire genre, as well as containing a huge cast of genuinely likable and believable characters.

 

IIRC, the Adem were deliberately so weird and unlike any other civilization. Remember all of Tempi's talks about what 'civilization' meant? The Adem had artificially constructed a manner of speaking and acting that intentionally set them away from the more natural, uncivilized ways of animals and barbarians.

The man-mothers thing was weird. It felt like Rothfuss was crudely hammering in some random idea he had because he thought it was cool, rather than because it suited the nature of the Adem.

On topic: I love the world of the Wheel of Time series, despite the various shortcomings in the writing. I'm also fascinated by the settings of a number of video games, quite possibly because of the 'less is more' factor, which draws me in and makes me value what little bits of lore pop up.

 

@Careotters
That's a good point re: deliberate construction of an artificial and strange culture. But I still don't fully buy it. Cultural taboos and constructs are strong, but still fail in real life when they run into strong natural human instincts.

Ex: Adultery taboos (especially for women) exist in practically every human culture/religion, but adultery still occurs in practically every culture.

I view communication done primarily with hands, with words playing a peripheral role, instead of vocal communication with facial expressions and body language as playing that peripheral role, as very unnatural. There's a reason why practically everyone gives away their thoughts with their body language, and it's not because we've been culturally reinforced to.

Basically, I think a less extreme version of the Adem, where they have the same ideas, but don't succeed to the same extent that they do in the books at suppressing their body language and vocalization, as much more plausible.

Anyways:

I agree with video game lore being really fascinating. One of the reasons I love Kingdom Hearts so much is because the lore is so thinly spread-- often I have no idea what's really going on. But what little you see is creative and new.

 

My favorite works have to be Wheel Of Time, more for the world than the characters.

Then, there's the Night Angel Trilogy, which is very much WoT inspired, the author even admits that Jordan is one of his favorite writers. The NA world has a lot that reminds you of the WoT world, but the characterization, and character growth is beautiful. All the people seemed real, flawed and even the one's I hated, were still wonderfully done.

Rothfuss' work is good, but I liked the first book much better than the second for all the reasons we've already discussed to death.

But contrary to popular opinions, both the LotR and ASoIaF bore me. I've tried them in both the literary and cinematic/TV versions, and I don't see what's so interesting about them.

Similarly, the Inheritence cycle. The first two books were fine, then I got bored and never finished the series.

 

Dragonlance was my first non-LOTR High Fantasy series. Specifically the War of The Twins and the War of The Lance.

STURM, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

That scene is up there with Boromir's, for me.

The Belgariad and The Elenium by David Eddings are absolute classics. Sparhawk is a Bawse amongst bawses.

Dragon Age is pretty awesome, despite the second game being made shittily, the world was still fantastic.

Final Fantasy I/VII/X/XII are all on the list. Despite X/XII being lesser popular entries into the series.

Dragonriders of Pern is still on the list, despite the fact that I haven't kept up with the books for almost a decade.

Elfstones of Shannara was great when I was a kid, but now they're sort of odd.

The Dresden Files earns a mention, of course.

As does Codex Alera, Captain's/Princep's Fury, in specific.

And of course, I can't forget Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy.

 

I would ask you to give it another chance. Two episodes is nothing in the world of GoT as GoT is a very slow burn, and just watching two episodes is really not enough to judge it in my opinion; I really don't see how one can get a good grasp of the characters, world, and story in just a few episodes unless you have read spoilers or have read the books. I would say to give it at least another 3 episodes or even the whole first season (only 10-12 episodes). You might just change your mind. The fantasy elements really don't play a major part until later on in the series. Up until then it is basically political intrigue, character drama and military conflict. But it's cool if that's not your thing or if it doesn't interest you; not everyone has the same tastes and there is nothing wrong in disliking a super popular series. I myself don't like many movies and books that are considered "must reads" or "must watches" that most of my friends and people on the internet enjoy.

 

Tolkien is of course the highest standard, but I'll throw in some other favorites.

Narnia: One of the most surprisingly intelligent children's novels ever written. Even as an adult they still hold a marvelous sense of magic to them. I'd place them over Harry Potter in that regard.

Shannara Series: I read the first series when I was a teenager. Decent series, though as a I look back they seem kinda cliched. Still..awesome world building.

Wheel of Time: I loved the world...hated the characters. All the males were brow-beaten by the same female character...just different names.

Dragon Age: My favorite video game of all time. Glad to see it getting so much love in this thread. Eagerly awaiting Inquisition.

And finally...

Dragonlance: Raistlin. Nuff said.

 

Books: not sure. Possibly Earthsea, possibly the Malazan series.

Film: Lord of the Rings.

Games: Elder Scrolls (or Oblivion and Skyrim, I suppose, not having played any of the others)

 

Do The Chronicles of Amber count? If so, that, hands down.