Best Fantasy Book?

Question

Hi All,

Which is best fantasy novel in ENGLISH. I am in biggener stage. Best, if it is a small book/story. Thanks.

Answer 1

HARDCOVER FICTION

Top 5 at a Glance
1. DEAR JOHN, by Nicholas Sparks
2. FOR ONE MORE DAY, by Mitch Albom
3. LISEY’S STORY, by Stephen King
4. H.R.H., by Danielle Steel
5. THE COLLECTORS, by David Baldacci

Answer 2

Don't listen to ani - Martin's and Goodkind's books are HUGE.

I recommend:
Robin McKinley - The Hero And The Crown
Robin McKinley - The Blue Sword
Ursula K. Leguin - A Wizard Of Earthsea (there are several more in the series)
Patricia C. Wrede - Dealing With Dragons
Tolkien - The Hobbit

Christopher Paolini - Eragon (big, but not a tough read)
J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Philosopher's Stone if you're in or buying from the UK)

Mercedes Lackey - Arrows for the Queen
Susan Cooper - The Dark Is Rising

Most of those are categorized as Young Adult fiction. If you're in an english-speaking country, try looking in the YA section of your local bookstore or library, and you'll find a lot of the above plus more.

Answer 3

For a beginner? Not Goodkind or Martin, as much as I love them,
Same with Feist and probably Eddings as well although his books are aimed at a younger audience so maybe. Certainly not Hobb, great writer but not for beginners. I'm thinking Young Adult books would make the best place to start.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (or Philosopher's Stone if buying from British sources)

The Book of Three, Lloyd Alexander

Try checking out the young adult section of your local library or bookstore for more.

Answer 4

The Belgariad, the Mallorean, The Elenium ahnd the Tamuli by David Eddings. Magician and anything else by Raymond E Fiest. The Black Magician Trilogy By Trudi Canavan. The Farseer Trilogy and The Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb(who also writes as Megan Lindholm(sp?). And finally Blue Moon Rising and Byond the Blue Moon by Simon Green(hilarious)
ALL BRILLIANT READS! YOU WILL NOT BE ABLETO PUT THEM DOWN.
Amy
XXX

Answer 5

How 'bout THE BLACKGLOOM BOUNTY? It's a medieval fantasy series. Lots of magic, mysticism and mayhem...and it has a smart young Irish lass as a co-main character.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594144516

PS: This is a BIG book--445 pages, but it's worth the time to read it.

Answer 6

Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin
The Sword of Truth, by Terry Goodkind

Answer 7

Unfortunately few people will have the pleasure of reading them withougt the lens of the movies, but The Hobbit and The Lord of the Ring have always been my favorite. My children will read them before they see the film. (I'll probably read it out loud to them)

Answer 8

Best Fantasy books




I often ask myself what to read next.

In fact, I ask myself this question after each book I finish: What next? What is the best book remaining that I have not read?

Unfortunately there isn't a list of the best fantasy books that have ever been written to use as a guide. If you browse the forums we find the same question: What is the top 5 all time for the fantasy books? While the list may differ from reader to reader there are some books that appear in almost all of them. These books are certainly good.

Each age of our life has its books. You read something when you are twelve thinking it is the best book ever and twenty years later you believe a totally different thing about it. When you are a teenager, things tend to be only good and bad. The bad guys can be easily identified because they do bad things. Why? Because they like it and this is how the world is made. But years pass and soon you realize that 'bad' and 'good' sometimes overlap, and more than that, people try almost all the time to do good things – for themselves.

Is then a world believable where people do bad things, just because they do bad things? Where they do not have any motivation other than to be bad?

When you start asking yourself these questions, you start losing satisfaction in the books where the line between good and evil is clearly drawn. But in the end what matters, after you have finished, is the feeling that remains once you've turned the last page.

Sometimes, just sometimes, you meet some stories that elevate you. They are the diamonds between the rubies and emeralds, clear, pure and blinding to everything around them. They are the books that leave you with a memory that will haunt you for your entire life. They are the ones that will guide you in life. Each person has their different diamonds, but nevertheless they exist. I will try to present here these books, my diamonds.

I have thought very hard for a week about what is the best fantasy book I've ever read. I was considering Bakker's The Darkness that Comes Before, Erikson's Deadhouse Gates and George RR Martin's A Clash of Kings. Then it struck me that I was not looking in the right direction because there was one book that I have read three times and at three different ages and still enjoyed it a lot: The Hobbit.

So from my point of view the best fantasy book ever written is The Hobbit. I first read it when I was 8 years old. I remember that I could not let it go and I skipped school to finish it. Obviously I got punished for missing the classes but I did not regret it for one second. That book was a revelation, the key to a magic world where the small were fighting the mighty and winning. That was the world I wanted to live in.

I read the book again, this time slower, when I was 12. This time I saw a world to explore, mighty foes and big rivers to cross. Gloomy forests were waiting for the explorer. Even the ending was enjoyable – the sleeping dragon that could be defeated only by outsmarting it.

Lastly, I read it a few years ago when I was 22-23. It was not as good as the first two times, but it was enjoyable. If I could enjoy it at 8, 12 and 22, then I can recommend it with all my heart to everybody. However, you must note that the book is mainly for children.

Now that I have my favourite, back to my dilemma: who is better? Bakker’s The Darkness that Comes Before? Erikson’s Deadhouse Gates? Or GRRM’s A Clash of Kings? This seems to me to be the great divide in the fantasy world. We have three series not finished, but each of them so far a masterpiece. Only time will tell which is the best, but all of them I think have earned their place in the hall of fame of fantasy literature. And when looking at the themes they are tackling, I predict that in twenty to thirty years they will all be seen as classics.

After days of thinking I decided that second place goes to The Darkness that Comes Before, which is the first book in the series The Prince of Nothing. What can I say about this book other than; exquisite, a feast for the avid reader.

You start reading and you find yourself in a world that is suffering, and you are suffering with the world. Around you, everybody is preparing for the holy war. The sun is burning your skin but you keep to the road in the scorching heat and the dust is slowly covering your clothes.

Ancient enemies of the human kind, that everybody thinks are extinct, are back and the sorcerer Achamian is dreaming each night about The First Apocalypse. The First Apocalypse that is only announcing the Second. All this is happening because you feel as if you are there and not reading a book. Bakker succeeded in transporting me to his world, a world that I loved.

Reading this book I felt like a child that is descovering the world for the first time. This was Bakker's debut novel and it is amazingly good for a debut.

Third place goes to Deadhouse Gates, written by Steven Erikson, the second entry in his series, The Malazan Book of the Fallen. The world of the Malazan empire is a dangerous place to live. It is primitive, a place where gods take physical form and meddle in human business, a world where the bad become kings and the worse become ascendants, the weak are killed by the strong and the justice depends only on perspective. This is the place where Duiker, the historian, starts a fantastic journey following the retreating Seventh Army, pursued by an entire continent.

Sometimes there is magic in a book. The story takes on a life of its own and starts growing and growing until you cannot say if it belongs to the author anymore or it just appeared from something else. Surreal. This is what I found happening to me when reading this book, spanning over 500 pages. I am absolutely sure that when he started to write this book Erikson didn’t know the result and how the story would evolve over the rest of the series.

The fourth and last book is A Clash of Kings, the second book in the series A Song of Ice and Fire, written by George RR Martin. When I was about ninteen or twenty years old, I saw a pretty blonde, a little older than me, waiting for someone in front of a store. Without too much thinking, I went over to her and I asked her if she was waiting for me. She answered that no, she was waiting for her boyfriend, and then I replied that yes, she was really waiting for me – and had been for the last 20 years. She smiled and she said that I was not her boyfriend, turned her back and entered the store. This is the real world, where all the beautiful women you see on the street are married or have a lover and where money buys you virtually anything.

This is Martin’s world too. In A Clash of Kings, Westeros is a place where dragons are extinct and the magic has gone with them. In this book no one is doing particularly bad things, only what is good for themselves. But somehow the world is full of gore, betrayals and dead people. It is divided by a great northern wall that protects the humans from “the others” – beings that want back what was once theirs.

What do you think happens when a young king falls in love with the girl of a conquered nobleman? They get married of course! And they live happily ever after…or maybe not?

George Martin is 'a real writer'. He can write anything from mystery to mainstream, virtually any kind of novel and be successful. I consider him the most skilled writer living today in the fantasy area, and his writing has the most appeal to the masses. Whilst he is not writing 'high literature', this does not diminish the quality of his writing. The closest writer to him I think is Ernest Hemingway, and like Hemingway, one day he will be seen as a classic writer.

What I have presented here are not books, but rather 'experiences'. In the end I found that my choice of best fantasy books are not about the writing quality, they are about the feeling you get after you finish the book and about the way you are transported into these worlds beautifully crafted by the authors. Years and years after you read them, when you sit idle, you think about them and you start remembering. Remembering the books or the feelings you had reading them. This has happened to me and I really hope that can happen to you. If it does, then the authors reached their goal.

Enjoy!!!

Answer 9

around the world in 80 days?

Answer 10

try Eragon, though its VERY big
or try Harry Potter (the first 3 r fairly small)