Recommend some books to me

[Deckerd]

I don't care for science fiction but Bob has ensnared me in fantasy. I like Jim Butcher, Ben Aaronovitch and for my sins I'm just finishing Song of Ice and Fire. I know there's a new Butcher about to come out but, given the above, can anyone recommend some new authors?

Before now, the only fantasy I had read (long ago) was JRR Tolkein and Mervyn Peake.

[marillion]

Fevre Dream by George RR Martin... Very cool take on vampires in the United States pre and post Civil War... Honestly, one of my very favorite books... I'm holding out hope that with the success of Game of Thrones, someone will do a movie or mini-series out of this, finally...

[Kegg]

You know there's something like a couple of dozen of current writers right now who could reasonably be classed as having GRRM as an influence or are merely similar to GRRM and as much as I enjoyed Ice and Fire I keep never getting around to reading any of them. So uh... there's that.

I guess the most relevant recommendation I can make is this:

Miles Vorkosigan, the hero of most of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga books, is suspiciously like Tyrion Lannister (as the dwarfish child to a powerful political family in a feudal society who gets by on a mixture of status, cunning and wit). These are space opera novels rather than fantasy but... that probably... won't hurt.

Past that (or alternately if you really want some high fantasy) there's Bujold's Chalion books, similar in tone but set in a fantasyland version of Medieval Spain, with a pretty clever focus on the theology... but yes, also involving politics, low-key magic, warfare, conspiracies and unlikely heroes (the protagonist of the second book is a middle aged dowager). Either of these book series are pretty standalone compared to Martin's dense Ice and Fire series, although in the Vorkosigan books in particular there's multi-novel character development which is nice.

Speaking more generally?

As far as fantasy goes been years since I read any of his books but Terry Pratchett was a staple of my childhood. More recently China Mieville is pretty great (Perdido Street Station reads like a gritter, more adult Ankh-Morpok to me), particularly if you like your stories to be overflowing with imagination. I dunno, I generally read more sci-fi.

marillion - From the writer behind Game of Thrones comes... VAMPIRES! - for that tag line alone I'd bet any sum that it'll be a movie or a miniseries or whatever soon enough. Haven't Sci-Fi optioned Wild Cards?

[Deckerd]

I should have said that I have read everything in TP's discworld series. I'm not sure how I managed to forget that.

[Bob The Skutter]

Don't forget that you love anything that's a tie in...

[spot_loves_data]

I'm rereading the Dune series, that might be up your alley if you like GoT... political intrigue, factions battling for power, detailed universe.

[Scout101]

Gotta be Fantasy?

Could hit the Shannara books, if you haven't already. The first one, Sword of Shannara, is a not-terribly-subtle lift of the LOTR books, but still's pretty decent. After that, he got better at doing his own thing, and it's a fun series. Plus there's a ton of it, broken into 3 and 4 book series.

S.M. Stirling's Emberverse books are a fun combo of alternate history and fantasy. Some history, some end of the world disaster, swords, little magic, take your pick.

The Sword of Truth series (Terry Goodkind) could also be a good choice...

[Kosh Naranek]

The Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart is great.

[Deckerd]

I read them when I was a kid. And the Sword in the Stone but not the others. Clearly my memory is defective as regards the amount of fantasy I have actually read.

[Robert Maxwell]

spot_loves_data wrote:

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I'm rereading the Dune series, that might be up your alley if you like GoT... political intrigue, factions battling for power, detailed universe.

Great series. The fourth book is my favorite.

Everything beyond the original 6 books does not "exist" for me, though.

[Lonemagpie]

China Mieville - especially Kraken, which is fantastic.

[Valin]

The Malazan Books of the Fallen by Steve Erikson is a very good series (at least the books I've read so far are quite good).

In some ways it reminds me of the old Thieves World books.

[Greg Cox]

marillion wrote:

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Fevre Dream by George RR Martin... Very cool take on vampires in the United States pre and post Civil War... Honestly, one of my very favorite books... I'm holding out hope that with the success of Game of Thrones, someone will do a movie or mini-series out of this, finally...

I'll throw in another endorsement for Fevre Dream. Steamboats and vampires . . . what more could you want?

[Gov Kodos]

EM Forster has some fine short stories. A very nice collection came out from 'Collector's Library' titled 'The Machine Stops'. TMS and 'The Celestial Omnibus' were two favorites in the collection. Another recommendation would be Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles, particularly the first five with Corwin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Amber

[stj]

K.J. Parker's Devices and Desires trilogy.
Richard K. Morgan The Steel Remains and its sequel.
Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories.
E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ourobourus.

These are more in the faux-mediaeval heroic fantasy mold.
But listing Butcher suggests your into urban fantasy, where there's a bucket load of names and books. More or less grabbing books off the shelf at random seems likely to work for selecting those, this and paranormal romance are huge right now.

By the way, I second Fevre Dream and the Amber novels (especially the first three.) But a contemporary G.R.R. Martin fantasy is Armageddon Rag, and it's even better than Fevre Dream.