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 like the books, superficially they are a treat, the prose is brilliant, the words feel nice on my brain.
But reading just a little bit deeper than that, you start to realise the story is pretty empty. The characters are hollow. The first two books are pretty much the same story loop over and over again. The characters making the same mistakes and learning the same lessons over and over again.
The way the author writes female characters makes you seriously worry about the authors relationship with women, and if he even knows any women.
I read the first book because I’d heard praise for it. It was either during that one, or the next book what I thought:
…fucking hell. I’m reading a retelling of fucking Harry Potter!
Yeah. It’s full of really common pop-fiction tropes. But the writing is so beautiful you don’t notice it.
It really jumped the shark when in the second book the guy who is a virgin and can’t talk to girls suddenly became the god of sex and literally out-sexed the sex nymph who had been sexing men to death for years.
I thought he specifically didn’t out-sex the sex nymph, but as she was about to turn and kill her latest victim (because she used sex and he was used up), it turned out the victim (our heeeero) had an affinity for the ‘supreme’ or actual magic in the series, and he was able to use it to bind her in the old fashioned ‘true-names-let-you-control’ trope… and then she turned him into a god of sex because she couldn’t kill him and he wasn’t going anywhere for a while.
I also think your characterization of quothe as not able to talk to girls isn’t quite accurate, just that he was a fool who had decided there was only one girl for him.
None of this is to say the criticisms of rothfuss aren’t accurate. The guy sniffs his own farts and thinks he creates pure oxygen in his bowels. His little vignette about making soap goes on for pages, and he had the temerity to sell it as it being just. so. necessary to do.
You’re probably right, it’s been years since I read it, and I was simply piggy backing off other criticisms I’ve read about the book by others saying similar things online.
Did it? I think one of the points is that the narrator isn’t particularly trustworthy.
Yes but also is that just Rothfuss’ excuse when fans call him out about plot inconsistencies? Because that’s how I heard that “explanation” came about.
Oh I didn’t even know Rothfuss ever brought it up explicitly. It’s a conceited character talking about themselves, so it seemed expected to me.