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I enjoyed the first book. I tolerated the second. I endured the next ten. Once Brandon Sanderson took over, I went back to tolerating them. Don't ask me why I felt compelled to stick with them; I'm not sure myself.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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The first book is crap. The second and third are quite a bit better. The fourth is fantastic. Then it tapers off, first slowly, then quite precipitously. It reaches abysmal lows before recovering reasonably well at the end. You wouldn't reach the end, of course, unless you had become hooked enough (by book four) to really want to know how it ended.
Posts: 202 | Registered: Nov 2005
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In my experience, the only series that is like Game of Thrones is Game of Thrones (personally I appreciate that).
Posts: 258 | Registered: Jul 2006
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Yeah, sadly ASoIaF pretty much killed my interest in other fantasy series. Though I would suggest the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons. It's technically "sci-fi" or "space opera", but has a bit of a fantasy feel to it. It's right up there with ASoIaF as my favorite series.
Sticking with pure fantasy, the Farseer trilogy from Robin Hobb is pretty good. Its not ASoIaF though, and you probably won't be blown away or anything like that. But I found them enjoyable even after having the genre spoiled by Martin.
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I also gave up on the "Wheel of Time" books. I think I read the first nine of them, but after the fourth book (the only one I really enjoyed), there wasn't much that I even remember.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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The Hyperion series was a mixed bag, but the great outweighed the good, the good outweighed the bad, and the bad outweighed the insulting and stupid ret-conning.
So AsoIaF is a genre killer, then?
My experience with fantasy is limited, because I assumed it was just a bunch of LotR knock-offs. Is ASoIaF the only counter example?
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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No. Limiting your options to recent books and completed series, you might also consider Daniel Abraham's Long Price Quartet.Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Foust: it's a very different kind of fantasy (swords & sorcery in the tradition of Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar, rather than epic fantasy in the tradition of Tolkien)... but you may want to try out Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora.
I very much feel that Lynch did for swords & sorcery what Martin did for epic fantasy.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I enjoyed it but books 7, 8, and 9, are really the low point of the series. Personally, I just wanted more Mat for most of the series.
Posts: 503 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Foust: Tom, Dan, I shall look at both. Thanks!
Oh, one thing: unlike Tom's recommendation, Lies of Locke Lamora is not a completed series.
But, as a good sword and sorcery tale, the first novel is pretty much self-contained. No huge cliffhangers or anything, it could totally stand alone with no sequels and be worth reading.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I liked WoT. The second and third books were MUCH better than the 1st, which I found to have interesting concept but very slow moving.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Vasslia Cora: I enjoyed it but books 7, 8, and 9, are really the low point of the series. Personally, I just wanted more Mat for most of the series.
Mat? The guy who steals an obviously cursed knife from a cursed city and starts acting like Gollum, and it takes 2/3s of the damn book for someone to say "hey Mat, you stole a cursed knife from a cursed city and you're acting like gollum"?
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Vasslia Cora: I enjoyed it but books 7, 8, and 9, are really the low point of the series. Personally, I just wanted more Mat for most of the series.
Mat? The guy who steals an obviously cursed knife from a cursed city and starts acting like Gollum, and it takes 2/3s of the damn book for someone to say "hey Mat, you stole a cursed knife from a cursed city and you're acting like gollum"?
I hated Mat with a passion for the first couple books but by the end, yes it needed WAY more Mat. He was really the only fun character in the whole series.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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remember, the heros never had the benefit of reading LOTR....lol....
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I was kind of disappointed in the Forsaken. Hyped up as the world's boogeymen, coming from a world with technology far beyond ours and magic far beyond Randland's.
They were the worst villains ever up until the last three or four books. Semirhage turned out pretty cool. (In an evil kind of way.) And...umm...Graendal's Great Captain trick was pretty clever. Am I missing anything?
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For me, it wasn't this book was good while that one was boring, it's more that some story lines I found to be quite excellent while others bored me to tears and I could find examples of both in every book.
Overall, I'm glad I read them. I probably never would have if I wasn't such a diehard Sanderson fan and his involvement got my interest. I found the series enjoyable but it won't be going on any all time favorites list for me.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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Without having read the whole thread I just have to say I'm having the same problem with "Gravity's Rainbow." I'm about 200 pages in, but each time I start reading I fall asleep. It's not that it's boring, it's just so dense that it's exhausting.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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