Book serieses (series? serieii?)

[lamguin]

What are you reading? What have you read that you enjoyed quite a bit? What lives on your bookshelf? What has a spot on your bookshelf, but never stays there?

Malazan Book of the Fallen, Steven Erikson

A Song of Fire and Ice, George R. R. Martin

Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling

The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan (and Brandon Sanderson, soon)

The Sword of Truth, Terry Goodkind

Amber, Roger Zelazny

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

[The Dark Fiddler]

Animorphs - K. A. Applegate.

Too bad it's so hard to find all of the 50 some books in the series. Plus the 10 or so non-main series books. Great series though. Great homebrew opportunities.

[zeekgenateer]

Ok there's probably alot I don't have here so I'll update when I have more time.

1632 - Eric Flint (available online FOR LEGAL READING, highly recommended)

Age of Fire - E.E. Knight (good books liked the first two best)

Looking Glass - John Ringo (heavy science fiction, with actual SCIENCE)

There Will Be Dragons - John Ringo (he's the man!)

The Protector's War - S. M. Stirling (Good series, starts amazing, but tapers off)

Dragon Knight - Gordon Dickson (Hilarious stuff, modern man meets middle ages with magic [alliteration? stupid english])

Wolf and Iron - Gordon Dickson (good book)

Dresden Files - Jim Butcher (TV series doesn't cut it, and based on best city ever)

Codex Alera - Jim Butcher (Political intrigue, weird take on Roman magic)

Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb (Political intrigue, more magic)

Judas Unchained - Peter F. Hamilton (Great SF, you know its a good author if I remember their middle initial)

Fallen Dragon - Peter F. Hamilton (More great SF)

Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card (where my love of SF began, still read it every couple of years)

Otherland - Tad Williams (AHHHHH you beat me to it)

Death Gate Cycle - Margret Weis/Tracy Hickman (Great series)

That's it for now. I love books!

[Biblioholic]

Malazan Book of the Fallen, Steven Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont

Otherland, Tad Williams

Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Tad Williams

Dune, Frank Herbert

Destination:Void Series, Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom

The Black Company, Glen Cook

The Dark Tower, Stephen King

Hyperion Cantos, Dan Simmons

Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds

Xeelee Sequence, Stephen Baxter

Uplift Series, David Brin

Canopus in Argos, Doris Lessing

Amber, Roger Zelazny

Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin

The Border Trilogy, Cormac McCarthy

Those are the series that I have either completely read or mostly read and have greatly enjoyed. There are also a couple of books that aren't parts of series that I have enjoyed A LOT, mainly Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte), The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov), The Moor's Last Sigh (Salman Rushdie), One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), and Collected Fictions (Jorge Luis Borges).

Anyone else read any of these or any others, in a series or not, that was great?

[zeekgenateer]

I read Otherland and loved it, completely forgot I have the entire set in various places of my house.

[Dr Pepper]

No matter how much i like a book, i rarely read any more than once. I've only read LOTR 3 times, for instance.

You can find my book list here: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/grixit.

As for serieses (the latin plural is series, btw), i recommend the Diadem books by Jo Clayton.

I haven't read any Wheel of Time yet. I was hesitant to commit to it because i was concenred the author wouldn't live to complete it. Everyone assured me he was in great health. Oh well. I have been gradually collecting used volumes as i find them.

[Marlowe]

First Law : Joe Ambercrombie

Memory, Sorrow and Thorn: Tad Williams (gah, someone beat me to this one)

Kingkiller Chronicles (of 1 novel so far ): Patrick Rothfuss

Gaunts Ghosts: Dan Abnett

Prince Roger Series (March Upcountry, et al): John Ringo/David Weber

Seafort Saga: David Feintuch

Sandman : Neil Gaimen

many many many many many many more...much to my wife's dismay

[The Dark Fiddler]

The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan, the final book of which was just released today.

Now I'm off to avoid all spoilers!

[Allandaros]

Series which I love:
Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber
Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen (haven't seen Esslemont's work yet)
Jim Butcher's Dresden Files and Codex Alera
Dan Abnett's Inquisition works and Gaunt's Ghosts
Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey and Maturin (aka Master & Commander)
Raymond E Feist & Janny Wurts's Empire Trilogy
Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Steven Brust's Taltos Cycle
Lois McMaster Bujold's Curse of Chalion and Miles Vorkosigan
Just about anything by Michael Stackpole

Series which I find tolerable but not vital:
George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire
Eric Flint et. al.'s 1632 (though this is slipping down, the further the books go)
Raymond E Feist's Midkemia work in general (very strong start, but significant quality dip as the series wears on, with one or two happy exceptions)
Terry Pratchett's Discworld (They're very good, but I overloaded on them and am now somewhat averse)

Series which I dislike:
Terry Brooks's Shannara
Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth
JK Rowling's Harry Potter
Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time
David Weber's Honor Harrington (though I liked the first few books, it went waaaaaay downhill)

If you like some of the books in my "dislike" column, I'm not saying that "You're doing it wrong" or any such - merely that they don't click with me, for varying reasons. If you're happy with 'em, then good on you!

(@Biblioholic: I enjoyed the first Dune immensely -the others, not so much- and I'm a fan of Borges and Garcia Marquez as well)

[Neuronin]

Fritz Leiber's "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" (if you're a fantasy fan, and you haven't been lucky enough to read these, you are in for a treat)
Robert E. Howard's "Conan of Cimmeria" and "Solomon Kane"
James Ellroy's "LA Quartet"
Lian Hearn's "Tales of the Otori"
Walter Mosley's "Easy Rawlins"
F. Paul Wilson's "Repairman Jack" (I like the "The Keep" stuff it's descended from less)
...
Who can so easily summarize all the books they've ever enjoyed?

[Xewleer]

Chronicles of Prydain
LoTR, Hobbit, Silmarillion
Ender's game, and the Shadow series
The Hidden Empire series by Kevin J. Anderson (really good sci-fi. Some violence, a little sex (but not graphic))
Series of Unfortunate events
Alex Rider series
Horrible histories (all the gory and gross parts of history left in!)
Redwall (up to the Taggerung)
Anything Star Wars by Timothy Zahn
Dan Abnett's Inspector Ravenor series (Warhammer)

[Allandaros]

Fritz Leiber's "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" (if you're a fantasy fan, and you haven't been lucky enough to read these, you are in for a treat)
Robert E. Howard's "Conan of Cimmeria" and "Solomon Kane"
...
Who can so easily summarize all the books they've ever enjoyed?

I sure as heck can't, because I forgot to list both Leiber and Howard...

[Neuronin]

Heh...I just FINALLY got "Swords and Ice Magic", so now I can read the entire series from beginning to end, for the first time. It's gonna be a good couple of weeks.

[zeekgenateer]

Harry Turtledove's WorldWar (aliens invade during WWII) and Derlevai (WWII but with magic).

[Alcazabedabra]

Frank Herbert's Dune - read the first book. Never read the rest. Don't intend to, either.

Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind - was a lot of fun. I liked the Wizard's Rules. I could think of better ones, though. As a morality tale, it works all right.

Known Space by Larry Niven - possibly the best SciFi universe ever created. He invited a score or so of other authors to write in that universe, and he published ten volumes of the Man-Kzin Wars. I've read five of them so far. He chooses his guest authors well. Ringworld was his masterpiece, and I invite anyone to pick up a used copy, read it, and shoot me a message to tell me what you think.

Watchmen - haven't seen the movie yet, but the comic book(s) is worth its weight in weapons-grade plutonium. The imagery is amazingly unique, the characters are deep, dimensional constructs of real human weaknesses, set off perfectly by their inhuman strengths. Best of all is Dr. Manhattan, whose very invulnerability and detachment from human weakness is his greatest weakness. I can only imagine what they did to the story in order to put it in movie form. What I hear is that they did all right... but Idunno.

E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman Series - Classic 1940's science fiction epic by a writer who seemingly only wrote epics. The books are dense with action, the heroes are about as friggin' heroic as they could possibly be, and the villains no less villainous by comparison. What Doc's stories lack in shades of gray they make up for in pacing, world-building and sweeping vision. I highly recommend any of his writings, and the Lensman series in particular.

[Sethram]

Series is an irregular plural like sheep or moose.

I've been meaning to start with the Wheel of Time series again. I think I got to Crossroads of Twilight but figured I wanted to wait for the entire series to be finished.

I've also been reading the Dark Tower Series after taking a break after the second book. The second one, while one of the most important books in the series, just felt funky to me. Didn't really like it. Now that I've started up again I'm to the point where I need to find Wizard and Glass.

Other than that, the books I read tend to be singular and not part of a series.

[Mikalyaran]

I've been getting through Raymond E. Fiest's serries that starts with Servant of the empire. It pretty sweet. Super interesting culture, tons of political intrigue. Good stuff.

[Prometheus]

Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. I'm re-reading this one, as I do every year or so. It's a great series.
The Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb. I finished this one two months ago, and it was quite good. She wrote two other trilogies following it. The second trilogy (The Liveship Traders) was even better, and I'm reading the last book of the third trilogy (The Tawny Man) right now.
The Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson (also known as the guy who's talking over the Wheel of Time series). I picked this up earlier this month, just to see how much I would like the author who's taking over my favorite series, and all I have to say is that I now have a new favorite series.
Elantris, also by Brandon Sanderson. This one is nearly as good as Mistborn.

Not sure what I'm going to read next, but I've heard good things about "A Song of Fire and Ice", so I might try that.

[Eiphel]

Just finished the Eisenhorn trilogy. Good pulp sci-fi. Possibly the only worthwhile 40K fiction.

A few years back I read the Bartimaeus trilogy, which is awesome. Nice blend of mythology and humour and plot. Builds steadily to a fitting climax.

Currently reading the second Flashman book. Another series well worth investigating.

[Destichado]

Just finished the Eisenhorn trilogy. Good pulp sci-fi. Possibly the only worthwhile 40K fiction.

No no no no. It's fantastic, yes, but there's a lot of good books in the Black library.
Gaunt's Ghosts, Space Wolves, the Horus Heresy opening trilogy, Flight of the Eisenstein, Legion, Storm of Iron, Grey Knights... it's not a short list. ...Well, short, compared to the list of crappy 40K books, but still.


Just finished Timothy Zahn's Odd Girl Out, latest in the series started by Night Train to Rigel. Most excelent books, all of them.