Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Good Heroic Fantasy?

Devilman was out and about with work people last night, and after the convo turned to reading, one of them asked D. if he could recommend any good heroic/epic fantasy, ala Tolkien. And Devilman realized he could not. So he asked me. And I could not either--not because there is no good heroic/epic fantasy ala Tolkien out there (?), but because that's just not my bag of tea, and so I don't keep up with that field.

But perhaps you, oh happy lurkers, do?

Can anyone recommend any good heroic/epic fantasy ala Tolkien? Stress on "good"--which means not "The Sword of Shannara" or "Lord Foul's Bane", which said friend has already read and (alas) abominated...Granted the good don was a master and perhaps no one can quite duplicate his feat, but surely someone is doing an adequate job of following in his foot-steps.

Recommendations gratefully received.

3 comments:

Gwenda said...

Christopher's been liking that new Patrick Rothfuss book, The Name of the Wind. And he highly recommends the Steven Erikson books.

Henry said...

The only two I can think of are:

1. The Prince of Nothing trilogy by R. Scott Bakker (starting with The Darkness That Comes Before)

2. The Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin (starting with A Game of Thrones)

Ysabeau Wilce said...

Great suggestions--thanks so much! I should have thought of Martin, of course, and I've also heard some buzz on Rothfuss...but Bakker is new to me. I'll pass the titles on, and if anyone can think of anything else, throw 'em into the ring!