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.
Malazan, Malazan, Malazan. Literally the result of two bored archaeologists and their DnD campaign while they were out on a dig.
It hangs with the best in terms of humor, tragedy, epic scope, and heroism. It does not hold your hand, in fact it will delight in letting your hand go while leading you through a dark room. Deeply philosophical, challenges and embraces tropes in equal part, absolutely interesting magic system(s). It is hardcore hopecore, it champions the little guy, empathy, and the bright mind over the slow. Main series is finished, 10 giant books. Also a bunch of others outside that series by both creators.
Be patient with it, some payoffs take a while. Read Gardens of the Moon and then Deadhouse Gates to see if it’s clicking. It isn’t for all.
I feel like this might be a terrible suggestion to start with. It has ruined fantasy for me. Nothing else I’ve found has come close, the worlds feel half baked, the stories mediocre, the characters forgettable, the scale a fraction of Malazan’s.
Erickson can get me more attached to a throwaway character that is introduced and killed off in a handful of pages than some authors can to their main character.
Glen Cook’s Black Company novels come close for me. They’re smaller scale, but they’ve got some heft. Erikson has said the series was a huge influence on him, too.
R Scott Bakker kinda scratches a similar itch, though it’s much more bleak.
More bleak than the Chain of Dogs, the Children of the Dead Seed, Beak’s candles, The Snake?!
I have had Bakker on my radar but I have to be in the right mood for fantasy.
Much more bleak. Erikson has more in the way of heroics in the face of the bleak. Bakker you get more of human flaws ushering in doom. It has a similar sense of scale, the world building is top notch. But the passage of time and intelligence are much less forgiving in Bakker’s world.
I’ve done numerous rereads of Malazan, none for Bakker. Though it’s just as deserving, if not more so. It’s just… a lot less uplifting.