A Song of Ice and Fire. By the time you read the fifth book, you'll only have like ten years before the sixth!

And your mods have arrived. Hehe

A Song of Ice and Fire: The Game of Thrones TV show is based on it, but the books are much better, more complex, and more compelling in most situations. Especially books 4 and 5 vs. Season 5. Lots of interwoven stories, political drama, supernatural stuff, and good characters.

The Dark Tower: Not quite just fantasy. It's a mix of fantasy, sci-fi, western... it's a very good series that's hard to describe. Stephen King, by the way. It kind of ties all his stuff together. If you don't love it after the second book, you might not like it at all though.

Series I have been recommended that I plan to start soon:
Mistborn
Wheel of Time
Discworld
Stormlight Archive
Malazan Book of the Fallen
The Blade Itself

The Dark Tower was brilliant up until the final two books, at which point I wished I'd not read them.

Discworld is great though; highly recommend.

I'd recommend Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovski. Completed series that started 2008, last one came out 2014, so it's new and completed. Doesn't use standard fantasy races, but it does do something similar with its insect kinden, where fly-kinden are small extremely nimble fliers, mantis-kinden are extremely skilled warriors, the wasp-kinden have an aggressively empire, etc. It starts out not too long after the technologically apt beetles and ants managed to gain independence from the more magical moths, the struggle between technology and the declining magic is a bit of a recurring theme in it if that's something that interests you.

You could reread krellin's forum posts if you want fantasy fiction.

I read the Ice and Fire series before it became hot on HBO, but I'll probably wait for the last book to be written or the show to be finished before resuming it. I've read most of the old series, so I'm looking for current ones, say in the last 5-10 years. I tried reading some young adult series and they make me want to hurt myself. So poorly written, full of grammatical mistakes, plot holes, and stupid stupid characters.

Currently I've added The Moth Saga Book 1 to my kindle collection, and so let's see how that goes. Before that I was reading Frozen Prospects by Dean Murray and it was so mediocre, and it felt so short. Are all kindle books or just fantasy books now so short instead of epic like Ice and Fire or the Malazan Book of the Fallen series?

I quite liked The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie

The quality does kind of drop in the last two books, especially notable in the sixth. However, the conclusion is so worth it. The 2nd through 5th books are all very good, though.

The R. A. Salvatore Forgotten Realm collected works.
Start with The Crystal Shard

Yeah. Book 1 was pretty meh but it was short enough that if you persevere to 2/3/4/5 it's great. 6 was abysmal, and whilst 7 started strong, I hated the entire second half of it.

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Beautifully written, if you like your Arthurian legends, feminism, politics and religious tones.

The Egypt series by Wilbur Smith is fantastic, by the way, though I'm not sure whether it's "Fantasy" enough here. The latter books certainly are but the early ones aren't so much. Brilliant books, though.

@Zultar - wanna be really brave? Volunteer to be my editor, and I will send you a bunch of shorts I've written, and a youth novel in dire need of massive editing.

What I like about the concept: You despise, and yet are a man of integrity, meaning you might actually give me the editorial feedback I seek.

You game?

And....by the way --- I would like to point out that Jeff Kuta harasses me in just about every thread - whether or not I am present. It would be nice if you would deal with such constant personal attacks...

The list thus far:

Mistborn (excellent! read it)

Wheel of Time (couldn't finish; Jordan got wayyy toooo wordy; it dragged on for so long; now I can't remember enough to resume)

Discworld (isn't this an ongoing series?)

Stormlight Archive (not yet but it's unfinished, no?)

Malazan Book of the Fallen (excellent, long but great)

The First Law trilogy (say one thing for zultar, he's a +1 whore; I enjoyed this series; my wife and I made a lot of "say one thing" for a long time after reading this series)

The Dark Tower (not yet; it's not a sprawling series, is it? I don't like those)

Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovski (not yet)

The R. A. Salvatore Forgotten Realm collected works (read most of them)

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (read already; great book)

...After all....Jeff Kunta *IS* one that constantly seeks my banishment for my offenses...while hypocritically attacking me at every chance.

Discworld is only a series in some ways; each one does fine as a standalone too. There are 20+ books, but since Sir Terry Pratchett died earlier this year (RIP), it's not ongoing anymore.

So much for not reading a lot of fantasy fiction, haha! You've read a fair amount.

No thanks to being an editor. I want to read good series, not waste time with unknown works that may or may not be any good. In terms of personal harassment, please keep those out of this thread. You two bother each other enough elsewhere that I rather not have them in here. Thanks for understanding. If you want me or the mods to seriously look into the alleged harassment, please send an email to the mods.

I used to read constantly, but since I came back to grad school that I have not read for fun much at all, so now I want to see if I can read some again.

Zultar - OK - don't be an editor -- give a piece a read...and if it sucks after the first page, stop. If you make it to the end, give me a general thumbs up/thumbs down.

I've been read by a couple others around here with generally positive comments.

As for contacting the mods about harassment....while not via email -- I think I JUST DID. Jeff Kutta atacks me, personally, constantly, by name. If you want a peaceful website, deal with him.

I'd also recommend the Witcher books, but I'm not sure if they are all translated to English yet.

I've been writing for 30 years, was an Honors English student at MSU before getting my Electrical Engineering degree. Despite the nonsensical froth that I spew around here, I can actually spin words together. Who knows...you might just like it...

Fine, krellin. Send me a couple of your best work to read. I can disconnect the persona from the author well enough.

The list thus far:

Mistborn (excellent! read it)

Wheel of Time (couldn't finish; Jordan got wayyy toooo wordy; it dragged on for so long; now I can't remember enough to resume)

Discworld (isn't this an ongoing series?)

Stormlight Archive (not yet but it's unfinished, no?)

Malazan Book of the Fallen (excellent, long but great)

The First Law trilogy (say one thing for zultar, he's a +1 whore; I enjoyed this series; my wife and I made a lot of "say one thing" for a long time after reading this series)

The Dark Tower (not yet; it's not a sprawling series, is it? I don't like those)

Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovski (not yet)

The R. A. Salvatore Forgotten Realm collected works (read most of them)

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (read already; great book)

The Witcher (I am going to get the 3rd game soon; do the books link up much with the games?)

Yay! But please don't disconnect me from the work in total. *IF* you decide to comment, I would like them to be brutally honest. :) lol

I read very little fantasy fiction, but if you like James Bond ish kind of stuff, Brad Thor write a very nice series with Scot Harvath as the protagonist. Guy kills bad guys , bangs all the hot chicks and stuff. Good fun

I can heartily recommend the Codex Alera by Jim Butcher as a completed fantasy series.

Sanderson's stormlight is great too, but it's got a very slow release schedule, and only 2 books are done so far, so that won't be done for a while.

I enjoyed Karen Miller's Kingmaker Kingbreaker duology, though it wasn't incredible or anything.

The Paksenarrion series by Elizabeth Moon (who also writes great SF) is very good. She was a marine, so her books are very military heavy, which I enjoy. Her books also features excellent female characters, which Fantasy/SF often lack.

The books take place before the events in the game. They are mostly unconnected storywise.