So I grew up very sheltered and isolated from society and as a result missed out on a lot of pop culture and other common things. I love to read, and I really enjoy fantasy and DnD and those types of things and I’m trying to find and catch up on the great fantasy books/series that every fantasy lover/nerd should know. I’m not as interested in sci-fi, but I’m willing to read the “great” ones too. What would you recommend?
Series I’ve read: The Lord of the Rings The Witcher The Dark Tower The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Dungeon Crawler Karl
Update to add also read: Wheel of Time Most of the Stormlight Archive The Hobbit
I’m just starting my first Discworld book.
Edit: Thanks everyone! Keep them coming, I’m going to make a list with all the suggestions and start working through them.
I’ll add another recommendation for The Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb, it is absolute peak storytelling imo
Seems like most of the big ones were mentioned. The glaring omission is The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. Read the first one, and you’ll find yourself finishing the story.
I’m gonna lean into the series part here, and point at some web series:
Pale is an urban fantasy story (modern day with a magical hidden world) by Wildbow. The premise for this story is it’s a murder mystery where none of the suspects is able to lie; and three girls are inducted into the magical world to solve it. This is actually the second web series of his in this world, after Pact. Wildbow is an extremely popular online author, and all his works are available online for free - his superhero stories (Worm and Ward) have influenced most of the online superhero fiction (and even some print publications) I’ve read since.
The Gods Are Bastards by D. D. Webb is a “high fantasy western”. It follows a class of 9 students going through the premier adventuring school in the empire; about a century after magitech advances have made that unfashionable. This series is entirely free online, as are most of his other works. Book 1 of 17 has been printed and is available under the same name. This series is on hiatus partway through his final book; he’s working on getting the mental space to complete it. If you read it online he’s very open about his process and issues as he goes; and if you find you enjoy it, he has a few other series getting updates in the meantime!
A Practical Guide to Evil is a fantasy series where story tropes are as strong as physical laws - the Law of Threes, for example, states that if a Hero is trounced by a Villain, and then is narrowly defeated in their second encounter, they will absolutely defeat the Villain the next time they meet. It follows the adventures of Catherine Foundling, an orphan who turns Villain to carve out a better life for her people. The first book is up on Amazon, the rest of the series is still available online.
All three of these have amazing, unique characters, extensive and fascinating world building, and go long - 15+ books worth apiece, so if any grab you, pace yourself! Also, they’re almost entirely available for free online!
The Lensman series by E.E. “Doc” Smith. The series as a whole is the defining work of Space Opera.
The Incarnations of Immortality series by Alan Dean Foster. It coverers all of the main Incarnations. Death, Time, Mother Nature, War, the three fates and the Devil and an introspective God. An excellent seriese.
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5
Firsthand account of one of the scariest events of the Second World War in the shape of highly entertaining sci-fi novel.
Must read for everyone.
All Vonnegut is worth reading
Surprised I haven’t seen someone yet mention Magician by Raymond E Feist. That whole first riftwar trilogy is great. Also the spin off Empire trilogy with Janny Wurts.
Seconding those who mentioned the R.A. Salvatore books including the Dark Elf series and the Icewind Dale series.
Babel it’s a fantasy historical account of oxford. It’s beautiful and wonderful. The author also has a series Poppy Wars which is good but it’s dark. But Babel is best.
Shannara. At least the first few.
When Women Were Dragons a great standalone book reimaging the 1950 based on women spontaneously turning into dragons. It’s a concept book where a sociality issue is examined by fantasy tropes which are fun. Worth reading if you haven’t done a female perspective novel or concept novel in a while.
Discworld (Terry Pratchett), no question.
Very much Discworld. I shouldn’t have had to scroll this far down to find this shame on all y’all. The Night Watch series and The Witches series are my favourites and I do recommend reading series’s in order to but you can start practically anywhere if you want. Just remember the very first two books aren’t anyone’s favourites but are still good.
Fourth Wing and the rest of the Empyrean series. It’s technically Romantasy (romance/fantasy) and it’s super popular now. But it’s got good world building, dragons and sex in it. If you have never done a Romantasy it’s worth a read even if you don’t think you will like romance novels.
While sex is in it it was never the focus of it imho. I love the series but I do think ppl. do somewhat overstate the amount of sex that is happening. Sure it gets to be a tad bit more frequent in the later books but is not the main focus. The world building is amazing and the story is fantastic. So even if you are not too into the whole sex/romance stuff you ca enjoy the series.
That is true. Sex isn’t the main focus and there’s more slow building of sexual tensional and anticipation than actual sex. The world building and story is great with some great action chapters.
Ringworld is solid. Just about everything written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle is good. When they work together, you get some solid stuff.
And books by Andy Weir are all very good. But you can cheat and watch the movies.
I would say Dune. It is sci-fantasy but I think it is ok.
Series?
-
Le Guin’s Earthsea Trilogy
-
Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain
-
Discworld, especially the Night Watch books
-
Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series
Individual Books:
-
Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown, or anything else she wrote
-
Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock and Howl’s Moving Castle, or anything else she wrote
-
Philip K. Dick, “Galactic Pot-Healer” (Dick straddles the line between science fiction and science fantasy, but this one’s firmly the latter)
-
Madeline L’Engle, Many Waters
I’m sure I’ll think of more but my break is up.
Wait wait. You’re starting with Engel’s “Many Waters?” Isn’t it book 4 in a series where book 1 (“A Wrinkle in Time”) is considered a classic?
It’s been a long time but I remember liking book 2 a whole lot. I never did get book 5, though I think there is one?
-